The Freeman Chronicles
by Basara549
Summary: An accident during the recovery of a derelict Zentraedi ship turns a family into the focal point of a shadow war between forces trying to manipulate history to their own ends. But, not even the manipulators can predict the final result of their actions, or the actions of those changed in the process.
1. Book One, Part One

The Freeman Chronicles: An excursion of imagination into the **Robotech** Universe

By Stanley S. Bundy

Robotech and associated characters are copyrighted by Harmony Gold Inc., and are used without permission. However, no ill intent is meant by their use in this nonprofit work.

**Book One - Agents of Change**

Original version: Hand-written November 1988

First Revision typed 1991, on an Atari 130XE

Second version recovered via scanning of dot-matrix printouts 1994-1995, and much correction from scanning errors made.

First Internet version 1997

Minor revisions for PDF conversion 2010

Version 2.0 for , March 2013. Interestingly, I caught a couple of scan-created errors from 1994 that were still present 19 years later, in preparing this version, in addition to making some story tweaks (fixing some dialogue, etc.).

**Note for the reader.** This fanfic consists of 5 books, detailing different eras. I'll be putting up each book, as completed.

Parts 1-4 make up Book One, and take place in the Malcontent era (2010s).

Parts 5-8 make up Book Two, and take place 2020-2028 (contemporary with the Sentinels as portrayed in the McKinney novels, with a few time tweaks)

Parts 9-12 make up Book Three, and take place 2029-2030 (The war with the Robotech Masters)

Parts 13-15 make up Book Four, and take place 2030-2034 (between wars, and much of the Invid Invasion)

Parts 16-18 make up Book Five, and mostly occurs in 2035 (the conclusion of the war, and the events after)

Originally, handwritten, it was 4 books of 250 pages (exactly) each, and it creeped me out a bit so I went in and expanded the post-Southern-Cross stuff into 6 parts, and rewrote a lot of the earlier books. I've been tweaking the story ever since.

This story started out as a fanfic about an RPG campaign long before the WWW, and has evolved considerably since. Throughout the story I use the terminology of Robotech as it existed in its first 10-15 years.

This story is dedicated to all the people who made it possible -

Tracy and Rick, who got me interested in **ElfQuest**, which opened my eyes to "third-party" comics, which in turn led me to **Robotech**;

Kevin Siembieda, whose** Robotech RPG** session at Marcon 23 turned my blossoming interest in things of the Protoculture into an obsession (Kevin, I hope you don't mind me using two of your pre-generated characters from that session as supporting cast);

The guys I was in reception battalion with at Fort Knox in November 1988, who were my first test readers, as I had the only reading material at hand (novels 1-10, plus I wrote the first half of book one there, and they were my first proofreaders).

Miles Yount, Shannon Jones and Glenn Johnson, who helped me turn this obsessive series of dreams into role-playing "reality";

The late Brian Daley, formerly of the writing team Jack McKinney. Though the "Lost Generation" books made McKinney about as popular with diehard **Robotech** fans as Carl Macek is with standard anime Otaku, we now realize that you were the real talent behind the earlier books;

and, of course, the late Robert Heinlein, whose book, **The Number of the Beast**, gave new insights in how to set things right.

Oh, and Tommy Yune can kiss my shiny metal ass. What you have done to **Robotech**, is comparable to what the Axis powers did to Poland and Korea in the late 1930s (to paraphrase "To Be or Not To Be")

Note: this book, while began during the publication of the **Sentinels** novels, quickly became a sequel of sorts to the entire publication, film and series line of **Robotech**. What, you say that they contradict each other? Of course they do. This novel explains why they do.

Just on the border of your waking mind,

There lies another Time;

Where Darkness and Light are one.

And as you tread the halls of sanity,

You feel so glad to be unable to go beyond.

I have a message from another Time...

- ELO, "Prologue"

_Prelude:_

_"NO! I have been used too much! I will not stand by and watch you play God with the lives of humanity!"_

_"How do you plan to stop me, apprentice? Do you actually think you can do a better job than I can?"_

_"I don't want ANYONE to do your job. It is too late for me to save the main line from your meddling, but I challenge you - we go head-to-head in the three of the alternates, best two out of three. A match similar to the Earth game, chess, with the three alternate lines as boards, and major figures as pieces, only captured pieces switch sides, unless destroyed."_

_"Agreed, apprentice, but you will find that saying is easier than doing."_

**Part One: Through the Looking-Glass**

**Chapter One:**

"Our history proves that there can be happy endings - if you're willing to fight for them. Of course, it never hurts to have some outside help."

- Noel Tyler, Kinship.

Lieutenant Scott Freeman was wakened by his beeping vidphone at 0400. "Dear God, please don't let it be another scum patrol," he muttered as he got up from his bed. Most of the last five months, starting with the interrupted New Year 2016 festivities in Manhattan, had been spent battling rogue Zentraedi or human bandits; at first, planet-side, but now from orbit. It had been three weeks since he or his squad had gotten a full night's sleep from Taps to Reveille.

"Freeman here," he mumbled into the phone. "Whaddya want me to kill this time?"

"Lt. Freeman, WAKE UP!" Suddenly Scott realized that it was his squadron commander, Commander Max Sterling, on the other end of the line instead of that bitch Davis down in the ARMD's Sit room.

"Commander Sterling; I'm sorry, sir, for my actions. I haven't been getting any sleep up here."

"So I've heard, Scott. I've got a change of pace for you and your group. Can your squad be ready to transfer back to Little Luna by 1300 hours today?"

"Yes, I think we can manage. What's the mission?"

"I can't tell you right now. As soon as you get here, I want you to meet me on deck seven of Landing Bay Four. Did you get that?"

"Deck seven of Landing Bay Four, Roger. Isn't that kinda in the boonies, so to speak? Even the Zentraedi haven't used that area for decades."

"That's because it's sized for the Tyrolean technicians who used to control the repair procedures on the more sophisticated stuff. But then, it's secrecy that requires such a remote meeting place."

"Can't you at least give me a hint as to what's so important?"

"All I can tell you is that it's possible you could have run-ins with pirates, Zentraedi, or more likely, the E.B.S.I.S. It is of the utmost importance that you succeed in the mission in order to maintain the current balance of power in space. I've gotta go now, Scott; see you later today. Sterling out."

If the NeoSoviets was involved, then the mission probably involved Robotechnology. In the aftermath of Dolza's attack, factions in Eastern Europe seized control of the surviving population centers. While they were a stabilizing force, there was no mistaking what this government's plans were. It was the first group of surviving populace of Earth to secede from the UEG, and was always looking out to acquire more mecha to use in its expansion drives into the wastelands. If his squad did encounter E.B.S.I.S. troops, an international incident could result.

This was due to the differences in position on the issue of salvaging Zentraedi equipment. It was the Soviet's belief that the salvage rights belonged to the discovering party only, contrary to the RDF and UEG ruling that all Zentraedi equipment in orbit belonged to the highest-ranking surviving officer of the Zentraedi High Command - namely Breetai, and it was up to him who could salvage what. So far, there hadn't been any major conflicts between the two governments' forces, but this was only due to the UEG's decision to "humor" the E.B.S.I.S. policy for a while, in the name of peace. For Scott, this policy made about as much sense as the "appeasement" policy of certain nations dealing with the madman Hitler in the 1930s. Eventually, the E.B.S.I.S. was going to use all that salvaged equipment, and there weren't too many opponents left for them to fight.

But what kind of salvage could be this important? All previous salvage ops by the RDF had only required a squad or two to register the claim, and were done completely above board. With the speed of Super Veritechs, it was unlikely that the E.B.S.I.S. could get there first, as the only mecha the "Sissies" had that were comparable to the VTs speed-wise were Zentraedi fighter pods and Quadrono armor, neither of which were easily convertible to human use. And there was no chance that they would let their Zentraedi handle salvage, as they had been burned more than once by all-Zentraedi groups going rogue. If the RDF had to send troops in covertly, then the salvageable goods must be really important, such as an entire bay of mecha on a crashed ship, or possibly Protoculture or even an intact fold generator. But if they haven't been there yet, how would they know what's out there?

Putting his speculations behind him, he started making the rounds, waking his squad mates. The first room he came to was the quarters of his younger brother, Shannon, and Todd Armana. Todd was already up, but Shannon wasn't in the room. In fact, his bed hadn't been slept in. Next was his sister, Janet, and their Earth cousin, Lynn Landers. All it took was a knock on the door to wake them.

Scott still couldn't figure out how he and his two siblings had gotten stationed together; it probably had something to do with the fact that all three of the Freemans has spent their childhood in space, children of two techs stationed on the original Moonbase. They had lived eight years on the moon, until the disappearance of the SDF-1. At that time, the UEDC evacuated all of the civilian dependents of the base personnel. As both parents had remained on the moon, the three kids had to move in with Lynn and her father at their home in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. They were there when the Zentraedi Main Fleet destroyed the Moonbase, almost as an afterthought after destroying most of the Earth's population centers. Ironically, his uncle died during the attack, but not at the hands of the Zentraedi. He was at his job in Knoxville at the time of the fleet's arrival, and was killed in a 70-car pile up on I-40 trying to get back home to get them to safety. Knoxville was somehow missed, although it had taken severe damage from the destruction of Oak Ridge to the west. It was three months later by the time help arrived, in the form of an RDF patrol that was mapping the devastation.

As three of the four kids(all but Lynn) were orphans of space personnel, all four were taken to New Macross to live. When they turned 16, both Scott and Lynn joined the RDF; Lynn went straight into the service, but Scott took and passed the tests to enter officer training. So, by the time of Khyron's assault, Scott, a promising 1st Lieutenant, was squad leader of three other pilots: Lynn, her off-again/on-again boyfriend/wingman Todd, and Janet, who had just finished her training. Scott liked Todd, mostly as Todd was never any competition for dates. When Todd wasn't involved with Lynn, he would steal Scott's dates with his looks, only to lose them because he had no concept of how to act in public. Scott wondered how Lynn was able to stand him.

Finally, he came to the room of his "baby brother's" girlfriend, Kayra. Kayra was a Zentraedi, part of an experiment by the Sterlings. She had been cloned late in the Zentraedi's last campaign, and had been placed in stasis immediately after cloning. After Dolza's defeat, the ship she had been on had to be abandoned, and everyone in stasis was awakened and evacuated. Since she had no real experience in either Zentraedi or human culture, she adapted easily to human society. The only thing setting her apart from normal humans was her unearthly beauty, accentuated by her natural green hair. This tended to cause her trouble, as it took her a while to comprehend human sexuality. After several incidents where persons who tried to take advantage of her naivety ended up hospitalized, she was sent by the authorities to have a talk with Miriya.

Miriya, no stranger to culture shock, did her best to help Kayra adjust. During one of their discussions, Max showed up, and the conversation turned to flying. As all female Zentraedi were programmed at cloning with the knowledge of how to pilot fighter pods(whose controls weren't much different from the jet controls of a VT), they put her in the student's seat of a VF-1D trainer. The Sterlings were sufficiently impressed by her skill to pull every string they knew to get her into the Veritech program. Due to her almost-inhuman skill in the pilot's seat, she racked up record scores in the Accelerated Training Course. After witnessing Kayra's first solo flight, Miriya said "I want her in Skull. NOW. She makes Max and me look like amateurs." After Scott's squad, the Highlanders, had been operating a while, Kayra and Shannon were assigned to it, and fell madly in love shortly afterward.

A very tired Kayra answered the door. "What's going on, Lieutenant? I thought we had the day off."

"Kayra, we ve been reassigned by your friends, the Sterlings. Tell Casanova over there(pointing to the hump still snoring on her bed) to get up and start packing. We have to leave for the Factory Satellite in seven hours."

"Yes, sir. May I ask why?"

"Ask Max; he wouldn't even tell me. Now get a move on, and ... and get dressed before answering the door! Jesus!" Scott had only then noticed that Kayra had been standing there totally nude. "Talk about your Zentraedi modesty!" Scott blushed as he closed the door, and went back to his room to start packing his things for later shipment to the Factory Satellite.

Scott sat in the cockpit of his VF-1J, thinking about Shannon and Kayra. Her race was responsible for the death of their parents, but Shannon didn't care. In fact, the two had tossed around the idea of marriage a couple of times, but they never went through with those ideas, out of respect for Scott and the others, who were just getting used to having a Zentraedi in the squad; having one for an in-law might be too much for them to take. Another thing holding them up was whether or not they would be able to have children. Out of a handful of cross-racial marriages and dozens of relationships, few children had resulted, and he personally had only known of two. One, of course, was Max and Miriya's daughter, Dana, who had been practically adopted by the entire Zentraedi RDF contingent. The other he'd never met, though the child's death the last year impacted all of Skull Squadron. Hirano was the son of Miriya's reclusive friend Seloy; both Hirano and Seloy died in the Brasilia massacre last year. The odds just weren't in their favor.

Scott was willing to forgive the Zentraedi and forget the past, as were all the others - except Lynn. Not only did she blame all Zentraedi for her father's death, she had also lost her first boyfriend in New Macross from Khyron's "Season's Greetings," as some perverse historians referred to his preliminary raid on the city for Protoculture on Christmas. It wouldn't be right to accept Kayra into their family if it drove another member out.

His reverie was interrupted by Janet, who told him that everyone was ready and waiting in their VTs. "OK, everyone, let's get moving. We can't keep the CO waiting." The VTs pulled out of the ARMD's hangar and flew into the sunrise over the Pacific.

**Chapter Two:**

"There are only two things certain in life - Death and Revenge." - Attributed to Thomas Riley Edwards.

After their arrival at the Factory Satellite, Scott began his long walk to the requested meeting place. Sure, he could have taken a jeep or even a hover cycle there, but it wouldn't have been the same. At the Academy, he had been on the track team, and had turned in some times that would have been world records, had such things mattered anymore. Today, though, he would settle for walking, now that he was in a place big enough to really exercise himself. The ARMDs were just too small for such activities as running or even walking for pleasure.

Suddenly, he heard voices from around the next corner. At first thinking that he had found Commander Sterling, he started to round the corner, only to catch himself as when he saw that neither person was Sterling. He quickly ducked back around the corner and sneaked a peek at the two men in the hall. The nearer one had his back turned toward Scott, but Scott still recognized him. Only two people in the Solar System wore cybernetic face plates, and Breetai wasn't a six-foot blonde. That meant that the blonde was Colonel T. R. Edwards, leader of Ghost Rider Squadron, a former RDF Veritech squadron that had been transferred to the Southern Cross T.A.S.C. when Edwards "defected" to that branch of the Earth forces.

The other man Scott didn't recognize, except that according to his lab coat and insignia, he worked in the research labs for either Emil Lang or Lazlo Zand. Scott's curiosity got the better of him, so he stood out of sight and listened to the conversation.

"Dammit, I want Hunter and Hayes to pay for what they did to me!" he heard Edwards exclaim. "Why must I wait?"

"My Master's plans must come first," the scientist replied. "When he finally takes the power of the Sterling child, he will become the supreme mind on Earth. Then you will be free to do whatever you wish. To paraphrase an old saying, you'll have the Brawn and he'll have the Brains. The two of you will rule Earth with iron fists."

"Yes, but how much longer will it take him? I'm growing impatient."

"There has been a complication. The Master was attempting the first stages of the transfer when he was interrupted by Major Emerson. For some reason, the Master's powers that he already possesses could not affect that man. It is up to you to take care of Emerson, preferably somewhere in space where there will be no witnesses or survivors."The scientist paused, then continued. "I must go now; the Master is calling."

"Get out of here, and hurry. Neither of us are supposed to be down here. The last thing we need is for one or both of us to get caught in a restricted area."

The two men left, passing through a bulkhead, then going different directions down a connecting passage. Scott was in shock. He had just heard two men, one of which was the commander of the infamous Ghost Riders, plotting the overthrow of the UEG, and the murders of three of the most important people in the armed forces. Also, they had talked of doing SOMETHING to little Dana Sterling, something about her "power"? Whatever they were talking about, it didn't sound like anything that Max or Miriya would approve of, or something that Dana would survive. He was still standing there, trying to figure out what to do, when he felt someone grab his shoulder. His heart leapt into his throat; had one of them noticed him, and doubled back around to silence him?

"Lt. Freeman?"

"Oh, thank God it's you, Commander Sterling. We have to talk sir. I just overheard something of overwhelming importance."

"Scott, call me Max. We're not exactly in a conference, ya know. Can't you wait to tell me until after we discuss your mission?"

"No, Max. I just accidentally overheard something disturbing - a plot of some sort against our forces and EarthGov. They also mentioned some kind of experiments on your daughter."

"WHAT? Tell me exactly what you overheard."

Scott told Max everything he had overheard, from Edwards desire for revenge ("Revenge for what?", Max asked, Scott didn't know) to this "Master's" plans for Dana. Max felt a cold shiver run up his spine as Scott described the latter.

"Just because she's unique doesn't mean she's got strange powers," Max stated to Scott. "Do YOU have any idea who this "Master" nut is, Scott?"

"No, but the scientist talking to Edwards was from the group working on Protoculture; at least, that's what insignia he wore."

"You think that the "Master" might be Lang or Zand? This is insane! Dana's a defenseless little girl."

"I don't know Max, but we'd better keep our guard up. We can try to figure more out when we tell the admirals about this mess."

"Unfortunately, Scott, you're still going to have to go on this mission before you can talk to Rick. Our security rides on your mission being successful."

"Why is it so important?"

"We found out about a Zentraedi scout cruiser that crashed on the moon five years ago with its fold systems and Protoculture supplies intact."

"Now that's important, but why do we have to send a whole squad to get it, especially now?"

"You need to know the history of the ship. During our counterattack against Dolza, most of his remaining ships were destroyed not by our weaponry, but by the explosion of Dolza's command asteroid. The ship in question was only damaged by the blast, but the damage was to the sublight main engines, atmospheric controls, and hull repair system. Everyone on the ship that wasn't in a sealed area was killed by explosive decompression. The ship was able to limp to the moon, where most of the ship's power lines were severed in the crash-landing. The survivors managed to make their way to the ship's reentry pods, and they abandoned ship. They surrendered to Breetai two days later."

"Why did it take so long to find out about the ship?"

"Its landing site is on the far side of a mountain range that runs along the edge of the visible part of the moon, so it wasn't visible from Earth or any of our space stations. We only found out about this ship, the Korra'ti, when a junior officer from the ship was assigned to help procure material from the debris belt to use in the construction of the SDF-3. R'ykandar mentioned his old ship in a conversation with his commander, and when the ship's existence was confirmed, we decided to send a repair team out to salvage it. You will in charge of the mission, which is to bring the ship back here on auxiliary power, if possible. Your squad will assist a team of specialists trained in using MBR-07s to make the necessary repairs and pilot it back."

"Max, if the ship has no atmosphere, how are we going to breathe?"

"You will be taking a Zentraedi shuttle out to the ship. It will be big enough to hold all of the materials and equipment we think you'll need to jury-rig the ship's controls, as well as food for all of you and five extra air tanks for Lt. R'ykandar's power armor. The air supply of the shuttle, where you'll be spending your nights, combined with your mecha's supplies, should be more than enough for your needs."

"How long do you think it will take to fix it?"

"A week to ten days, if R'ykandar is right about the amount of damage. The main reason your squad is going isn't to protect the specialists in their Gladiators, but to help them do things that their Destroids just can't do. After all, a Battloid is a lot more flexible and dexterous than its human pilot; the same thing cannot be said about a Destroid. R'ykandar will be piloting the shuttle, since he is the only one of the mission group who has any experience with it. You're leaving at 0800, which is only nine hours away, so we need to hurry back in. My jeep's around the corner."

As they walked to the jeep, Scott asked one last question. "Max, is there anything else I should know?"

"Other than that you should board the ship with an empty stomach, I don't think so. If you do need to find something out, there's a computer on the shuttle, with everything we know about the ship loaded onto its drives," Max started the jeep. "Oh, I forgot; you will be under radio silence except in case of emergency or if you need a critical supply run. You are to use only the Zentraedi frequencies listed on the radio to contact us. Hold on, I feel the need for speed!"

"Jesus Christ!" Scott said as the jeep took off like a bullet down the giant-sized corridor at excessive speed. "What are you trying to do, make Miriya a widow or something? SLOW DOWN!"

"Can't you take a little acceleration, Scott? If you don't live life to the fullest, you waste it."

"Maybe, but at least let me put my seat belt on; I'm not cut out to be a human cannonball!"

**Chapter Three:**

"If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong, at the worst possible time and in the worst possible way."

- Murphy's Law(Expanded version).

"Murphy was an optimist." - Anonymous.

The pre-mission briefing had just ended when Max and Scott arrived, and the others were filing out as they approached the door. Scott thought he recognized one of the techs, but wasn't sure. Didn't she die in Old Detroit?

"Dani?"

"Scott! I was wondering when you were going to show up!" she exclaimed as she hugged him.

"Well, Scott, are you going to introduce me to your friend?" Max asked.

"Actually, Max, she's family; this my cousin, Danielle White. We thought she had died in Dolza's assault, but evidently she survived." Scott turned to his cousin. "Danielle, this is Commander Max Sterling, leader of Skull Squadron."

"Hello, sir. I'm sorry I didn't salute either of you, sir," she said as she unconsciously glanced down at her corporal's insignia.

"Don't mind it, Corporal. Why let rank get in the way of a family reunion? I'm going in to talk with Exedore."

"Dani, where have you been? We thought you were dead."

"I was outside Cincinnati at King's Island at the time of the attack. It was horrible. At first, we thought it was just part of the fireworks show, but when Dayton was hit to the north, everyone panicked. Hundreds died in a stampede to the parking lot. I was stuck in a refugee camp for two months there, waiting for news about my home. When I heard Detroit was gone, I headed south, hoping to make it to Lynn's house. My car ran out of gas outside the ruins of Lexington, so I had to walk the rest of the way. I got to Sevierville in November, and spent the better part of two months looking for you. But the only thing I could find was Uncle Jim's grave. No one seemed to know where you went. I finally gave up and hitched a ride with a transport in January to Monument City to join the RDF.

"Did Jan tell you where we were during that time?"

"Yeah. In fact, at one time Lynn and I were supposed to have a class together in training, but it got canceled. When we finally did take the course, we were in different sections. By the way, Scott; Jan, Shannon, Lynn and I are going out for a quick snack before we turn in. Are you going to join us?"

"Why not? It'll help get my mind off of what happened earlier."

"What happened?"

"Believe me, you don't want to know."

They left that morning, right on schedule. The next couple of days were spent catching up on lost time with Danielle and double-checking their equipment. The Veritechs took turns, two at a time, flying cover for the shuttle. Finally, on 2 May 2016, they arrived at the site. They knew then that they had a long job ahead of them. There was a gaping hole in the rear quarter of the ship where the engine rooms used to be. Farther up on the starboard side was another hole that exposed much of the second and third decks. However, there were still some lights on aboard the ship, on the lowest level. As they approached the airlock on the port side of that level, R'ykandar hit a button on the shuttle's control panel that signaled the door to open. To everyone's surprise, it did. Unfortunately, that meant there wasn't any air on the other side of the airlock, as the entire hangar had to decompress to allow the shuttle to enter, due to its size.

The ship was almost exactly as Lt. R'ykandar described, with a few surprises. About half of the lowest level still had power, including the room with the stasis pods. This proved interesting, as the pods had been left untouched by the crew during evacuation, as there was no way to bring the Zentraedi within out of stasis without killing them in the vacuum of space the instant they stepped out of their pods. So 263 Zentraedi still slept on, oblivious to the fact that they had been abandoned.

Other things weren't so pleasant. Small rooms that had retained air that, when opened, threw the opener back against the far wall, often to be hit by the bodies of Zentraedi that had asphyxiated in their place of temporary refuge. Other rooms contained the exploded remains of normal Zentraedi soldiers, who hadn't been created with the same toughness that allowed officers such as Breetai to survive for a few minutes exposed to a vacuum. More than once, they saw R'ykandar stop over a body and pay his last respects to a friend that had been caught in the hell that had been the decompressing third level. There were other times when they heard him cry over the comlink, surrounded by the bodies of hundreds of his subordinates and friends. The place was hell in every sense of the word, and the first two days consisted of nothing but disposing of the dead Zentraedi.

After the grisly task of laying the dead to rest was finished, the actual repair work began. All it took was a glance at the air purification and pressurization system to know it was a total loss, and the main engines were only slightly better, if you considered it would take at best a month to fix them to run at half-speed, since the starboard of the two was completely gone. The hull repair system could run off of auxiliary power, and had been doing so. However, in its own damaged state, it would take another year at the current rate for the nanites to seal the hole amidships, let alone the hole where the starboard engine used to be.

That wasn't really necessary. All that was really needed was to restore power to the bridge, but in order to do that, the ship's entire electrical system had to be restored to minimal capacity, cutting out grounds and shorts created by the damage. This was easier said than done. The average size of the cables in a Zentraedi vessel is about the thickness of a Veritech arm, and there weren't any schematics for any of the ship's systems this side of Tyrol, since it was soon apparent that the ship differed from what was supposed to be the standard wiring format of other scouts. It took most of the next week, with all hands working, to track down all the breaks in the lines. By the 11th, almost all of the ship had regained power. On the 12th, the bridge was repaired and the controls for the engines were installed. The highlight of the day was when the artificial gravity was restored while Shannon was showing off in his VT, walking on his hands in Battloid mode. Everyone settled in for a good night's sleep, to prepare for the next day's departure from the lunar surface.

"Dar, when will we be able to lift off?"

"About any time you want to, Lt. Freeman. Power reserves are at maximum, and the auxiliaries are operating at 95%. It's too bad we'll be limited to speeds comparable to your old pre-SDF space program. I wish you could have seen this ship in its prime - it was one of the last ships built, and was one of the best."

"Start the countdown at T - 10 minutes, right ... now."

"Countdown started at 12:57, standard time."

"Danielle, call the Factory Satellite and tell them we're on our way. Estimated ETA is 16 May at 1845."

"Doing so now, Scott. Message has been sent, received, and acknowledged."

"Where's Shannon and Kayra?"

"The last time I saw them, they were heading back to the shuttle," Janet said. "You know what that probably means."

"Unfortunately, I do. Scott to shuttle, answer me Shannon - NOW!"

"Yeah?"

"Are you two through down there? We're lifting off in eight minutes, and we don't want to have you guys fall overboard through a hole."

"Well, what do you want us to do?"

"Shannon, if you weren't my brother, I'd already have you doing life in the brig for insubordination. What do you think I want you to do? You and Kayra get back in uniform and get the hell back up here on the double. It's gonna take all of us to fly this hulk. Scott out." Scott leaned back in the seat of his Battloid, the Battloid itself sitting in the Commander's chair overlooking the bridge area. "Jesus. All those two ever seem to think about is sex. It's almost like they think this mission is a pleasure cruise."

"Scott, you're being too hard on our baby brother," Janet replied. "After all, you used to be quite the ladies man in New Macross and Monument."

"Janet, I may have had a lot of girlfriends, but I didn't try to screw them every time I had a little time to waste."

"Why worry about them? Shannon can fend for himself, and Kayra's a good person."

Five minutes later, the two lovebirds burst onto the bridge in their Battloids, apparently still dressing inside their mecha. "Scott, where do you want us?"

"At the short-range sensor console, between Nita and Alex."

"Liftoff in 30 seconds... 15... 10... 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... We have liftoff."

"Maria, what's our altitude?"

"3000 meters, and climbing."

"At 10000 meters, switch to forward propulsion, and set course for the Factory Satellite." Scott was relieved to finally be heading back in.

"In the name of Zor, NO!" R'ykandar screamed, almost as if someone was trying to kill him.

"What is it, Dar?"

"Set your radio to the ship's intercom frequency."

"It's a countdown, but what for?"

"It's a fold countdown; we're going to fold in 20 seconds. We're as good as dead!"

"Why?"

"It's a blind fold, there's no telling where we'll end up. We could fold into a star, or worse."

"Can you stop it?"

"I could from the fold engine room, but it's too late for that. Hold on!"

The fold started, disorienting everyone for the expansion part of the fold. When the fold stabilized, all navigational bearings were lost.

"Is everyone all right?"

"We're a little shaken down here, but we're okay."

"Dar, I thought folds didn't take any subjective time?"

"Some do, some don't. The SDF-1's fold didn't take any subjective time to go from Earth to the fringe of the solar system, but interstellar folds can take hours, even days, depending on the length of the jump. The time grows exponentially depending on the distance jumped; that's why, if we were in a hurry to get somewhere, we would make a dozen or so smaller jumps to cover the same distance. Smaller jumps take more shipboard time but less real time; one long fold takes less subjective time but a lot more real time. There's a way to circumvent this problem, I've been told, but the Masters withheld it from even the high commanders, and just provided us with input for the computers for when we needed it."

"How long do you think this one will last?"

"There's no way of knowing. However, should we run out of power before we defold, we'll disintegrate into pure energy upon returning to normal space in such a sudden manner. It would be over quickly for us, but the energy released would vaporize an entire planet if we materialized on or beneath its surface."

"Scott?"

"What do you want?"

"I just noticed something. Did you know that there are thirteen of us on this mission?"

"So what? It'll take more than that to cause me to believe that old superstition."

"How about the fact that the exact time we folded was 1313 hours on Friday, May Thirteenth? We should have realized things were going too well."

"Thanks a lot, Mr. Murphy, wherever you are."

**Chapter Four:**

"Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,

The tale of a fateful trip..." - Theme from Gilligan's Island

The fold lasted almost two weeks, subjective. By this time, the food that they had brought with them was gone, and they had to resort to eating "Dolza's Revenge", the grey paste that the ship made from recycled nutrients that had been stored in airtight tubs in various closets in the ship. "Just like the Earth military," Dar had said. "Extra food was contraband, but many soldiers had a little stashed away somewhere." Unfortunately, the air was starting to go stale as well, in both the shuttle and the mecha. Dar had been eking out four days per bottle of air, instead of the three that each bottle was supposed to last, and wasn't able to do much in the way of work.

By this time that no longer mattered, as there was little to do anyway but sit and hope that the fold would end. Shannon and Kayra decided to get married, and Dar performed a simple, spartan ceremony three days after the fold began, in his position as the ranking survivor of the ship's original crew. After a one night honeymoon, they were told to knock it off to conserve air, and they complied for everyone's sake.

Both hope and oxygen were starting to run thin when the defold klaxons finally sounded. The shuttle's air was unbreathable, and the mecha had very little air left, with the Gladiators having about three days worth of air, and the rest only a few hours. By some miracle, the ship had defolded inside a planetary system, within 2000 miles of an Earth-like planet.

"Danielle, give me a status report," Scott asked in a raspy voice.

"All systems functional, energy reserves 10%."

"Maria, any data on this system in the ship's computer?"

"Checking the ship's records now... It's the Rhestad system. It has one life-bearing planet, Garuda, which apparently is the one we're currently above. The atmosphere is a nitrogen-oxygen mix, like Earth's, except that there is some kind of bacterial life form in the air that produces a psionic effect in the natives, but is usually fatal to non-natives over a long exposure. The climate is similar to pre-war Scandinavia, and the natives are a humanoid race, with some canine and feline features. Garuda is considered part of the Robotech Master's empire, but the natives are somewhat hostile toward the Tyroleans. The planetary language is Zentraedi, which is used throughout the empire as a trade language."

"Great. We're above a planet with contaminated air that's controlled by the enemy. The natives would be friendly, if they knew who we represent, but as we'll be coming down in a Zentraedi ship we'll likely be attacked by both sides. Any more good news?"

"Our ETA on the surface is 1.2 hours. The hemisphere below us is opposite the one that holds most of the Tyrolean bases."

"Let's hope we get lucky and get a chance to talk before they shoot us."

The hour prior to entering the atmosphere was tense, as the VT pilots became short of air. There seemed to be no response from the surface to their approach, which might have been due to the activity going on in the other hemisphere. What that activity was couldn't be determined from their angle.

"Maybe the Garudans are revolting," Maria suggested.

"Possibly, but I doubt it." R'ykandar replied. "More than likely, it's some kind of live-fire exercise by the Master's Bioroids, or possibly the last remaining Zentraedi."

"Scott, Dar! We're losing power! Reserves are 5% and dropping fast! The power production of the auxiliaries is falling as well."

"Is there any way to compensate?"

"Negative. However, we should be nearly down before we lose power. We'll be at ground level but will still have forward momentum."

"How long before we make planetfall?"

"3 minutes."

"Take us in. Everybody brace yourselves! Those of you in Gladiators, don't forget the magnets in the feet of those mecha. Activate them and strap yourself in your cockpit, and for God's sake, make sure your weapons are all off!"

The impact threw the Veritechs out of their seats, even though they had been strapped into the Zentraedi-sized chairs. The Gladiators, however, were unfazed.

"Everybody sound off on my command!" Scott ordered. "Dar?"

"I'm okay, Lieutenant."

"Maria, Alex?"

"We're fine, Scott," Maria replied. They say any landing you can walk away from..."

"I know. Danielle, Steve?"

"Shaken and stirred, but alive," Dani joked, referring to the CD she'd been listening for the last week.

"Kurt, Nita?"

"We're okay, Scott, but I could use a beer right now."

"Join the club, Kurt. Todd?"

"I'm bruised a little bit, and I'd appreciate it if someone would help get this junk off of me!" he replied from under the equipment that had been the jury-rigged engine controls.

"Shannon, Kayra?"

"Can we do that again, Scott? Can we, can we?"

"Cute, Shannon. remind me to laugh when we have air to waste. Janet?"

"Did you get the ID of the SDF that stepped on me? My head feels like someone just drop-kicked it."

"Lynn?"

"Goddamn Zentraedi equipment! Somebody get be out of this chair!"

"I told you it looked like the supports were broken," Todd chided her, helping her out of her predicament after Kurt had helped him get free of his..

"Look who sat in front of a bunch of loose equipment, meathead!" she snapped back at him.

"Now that we're through yelling at each other, what are we going to do?"

"Scott, I suggest we prepare to fight?"

"Fight what?"

"I'm picking up intruders coming in through the hole in the third level. I can't identify them. Dar, do you recognize them?"

"Invid Scouts and Troopers, Danielle. We're in big trouble!"

"Invid?"

"The Invid were the race that the Masters stole the Flower of Life from, in order to control all of the Protoculture."

"The Flower of What?"

"The Invid Flower of Life is the source of Protoculture. I'm not old enough to have been a part of the event, but Exedore once told me that the Masters used the Zentraedi to virtually sterilize the Invid homeworld of Optera, taking the remaining flowers for themselves. The Invid went from a peaceful, pastoral, race to a cold race with a singlething in mind - the slaughter of those that took it from them. Their single-mindedness makes the old Zentraedi way look like pacifism. If they're here, then the Masters must be in pretty bad shape."

"How are they armed?" Scott asked.

"These only have blades in their arms, although variants of these mecha usually have plasma cannon, so watch out. Their weak spot is their sensor, but it's damn hard to hit!"

"They're outside the door... Maria, take your squad out the other door and hit them from behind!"

This didn't exactly work as planned, as they found themselves surrounded by about 30 of the Invid, but they now had room to use their weapons without doing damage to the bridge. Within five minutes, all the Invid were down, and none of the RDF mecha had taken more than minor damage.

"Scott?"

"Uhhh... Yes, Dani?" he replied, gasping for breath.

"Your air's down to zero; Dar, Todd and Lynn are out too. You'll have to risk the air outside."

"How's ... the ... others?"

"Shannon and Kayra are about out as well; Jan has about an hour to go before she runs out. The Gladiators still have a few days worth of air, but we'd be contaminated if we unsealed them to let you in.

"That's all right. I'm unsealing now. It's not affecting me immediately, so everyone that's out might as well join me before they suffocate. Watch us, and make sure we don't hurt ourselves when the atmosphere starts affecting us."

One by one, they fell to the effects of the atmosphere. First there were hallucinations, then catatonia, finally ending in coma. The others had moved them back into the bridge area, and sat around, waiting for the end. Suddenly, the calm was broken by a faint message coming over the ship's radio.

"What is it saying?"

"It's in Zentraedi. Maria, can you translate it? You know more Zentraedi than I do."

"Do Battle Pods bounce? '...Invid force defeated, evacuating wounded... start programming course for Haydon IV... have four casualties from exposure to "hin..."' that's the contaminants in the air; I'm losing it. Nita, boost it, if you can."

"I ve got it pumped as high as I can, right now. You'll have to make do."

" ...Prepare to leave orbit as soon as we arrive. Quick, hand me the mike! I'm going to contact whoever this is on here."

"Are you sure? What if they're the enemy?"

"I'd rather die in a fight than in a coma," Alex muttered. "Do it, Maria.

"Calling unidentified persons on this frequency," Maria said in her stilted Zentraedi. " This is Sergeant Maria Perez of the Earth Robotech Defense Force. My colleagues and I have crash-landed on Garuda after an accidental fold by the Zentraedi scout ship we were trying to salvage. We have four Earth humans, one micronized Zentraedi and one full-sized Zentraedi that have been exposed to the atmosphere for almost an hour. We request immediate medical aid. Over."

"WHO THE HELL IS THIS ON THIS FREQUENCY?" came the reply, IN ENGLISH.

"Who the hell are you to be speaking English on this God-forsaken planet?" Maria snapped back, in English this time.

"Never mind who I am, just repeat your ID. Help is on the way, and they need your signal to home in on."

"I am Staff Sergeant Maria Perez of the Robotech Defense Force, Highlander task group, assigned to Skull Squadron. We were on a mission to recover a derelict Zentraedi scout ship from the moon when the ship's fold system activated by itself and dumped us here about an hour and a half ago. Our Veritech pilots and our large Zentraedi teammate ran out of air for their mecha and had to breathe this atmosphere or suffocate. We have six casualties: 4 humans, a Full-sized male Zentraedi, and a micronized female Zentraedi. All have been breathing this planet's atmosphere for nearly an hour. We also have one other Veritech pilot with about ten minutes of air left, so we'd appreciate it if you would hurry. Over."

"Roger. Tell the Veritech pilot to conserve his or her air, because our ETA is fifteen minutes. Over.

"Wilco. See you when you get here. Over and out."

**Chapter Five:**

"Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's immortal detective, once said When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. The logic behind this theory is sound; in fact, it theoretically should work every time enough evidence is found. The only problem is to get other people, who by nature are very illogical, to believe your results." - Maria Perez-Logan, Garuda Blues.

The relative silence outside the Korra'ti was soon broken by the arrival of what looked at first to be a group of Veritechs. This notion was dispelled when each of the "VTs" separated into two separate aircraft, one similar to a midget VT, the other like nothing they had ever seen before. Both mecha created by the separation transformed into a Battloid configuration, then hovered down to the ground. As the dust settled, an amplified voice rang through the Garudan air.

"Come out of the ship with your injured in hand and your weapons locked down!"

"By whose orders?" Maria shouted back over her Gladiator's loudspeakers.

"Colonel Jonathan Wolfe of the Robotech Expeditionary Force on behalf of General Vincent Grant and Commander Maximilian Sterling, acting commanders of REF-Sentinels."

The names confused them. Some of them knew Jonathan Wolfe back on Earth, but he was only a Captain, and a young one at that. And they had all met Max Sterling prior to the departure of their mission, but there were too many unanswered questions.

"Should we trust them?" Alex asked Maria. "He sounds like the Jon Wolfe I know, and those mecha do have RDF markings. But how could they have beaten us here?"

"I noticed something when he was talking. He said he was part of the REF, or Robotech EXPEDITIONARY Force. That's one of the names for the SDF-3 mission that the UEG's been considering."

"Maybe so, Maria, but where did they get those oddball Veritechs? I ve never seen anything like them. And aren't Admiral Hunter and Admiral Hayes supposed to be leading the SDF-3 mission?"

"Maybe something happened to them. He did say that Grant and Sterling were the ACTING commanders."

"Alex, I ve been hearing rumors that Dr. Lang is developing a system of mecha similar to those Veritechs," Robert interrupted. " They're called a Legios fighter. The front VT is the Alpha unit, the rear, the Beta unit. But from what I ve heard, they haven't even settled on a design yet for the mecha, let alone constructing prototypes or combat models! Besides, the SDF-3 is just now being built; there's no way it could have beat us here."

"Would you please stop arguing, I'm running out of air!" Janet panted over the comlink. "We don't have any choice. We have to surrender to them, otherwise we're all going to die one way or the other."

"You made your point Janet. Go on out, since you're out of air, and we'll be right behind you once we figure out who's carrying who."

" Thanks, Maria," Janet said as she left the bridge area.

"Colonel," Maria called over her radio. "We're coming out. Get some air to the girl in the VT that's exiting the ship right now; she just ran out."

"Wilco, sergeant. How much longer will the rest of your group be in leaving the ship?"

"We're about to leave the bridge right now."

By this time, a large shuttle of some sort had arrived. Their fallen comrades were taken from them, and they were escorted on board the shuttle, where they were ordered to get out of the Gladiators. Janet was already out of her Veritech, wearing an oxygen mask to recover from her near-suffocation. They were then escorted to a small cabin aboard the shuttle, and were confined there until the shuttle had landed aboard a ship of some kind in orbit. They were then taken to the brig area of the ship, and placed in isolated cells. Immediately afterward, the ship made a quick fold.

Over the next week, each of them was interrogated about their pasts and the mission that had led to their arrival on Garuda. Each time, the person doing the "interview" remained on the far side of a one-way mirror. The line of questioning quickly changed from military to personal, and it was beginning to wear on them. Eventually, the questions turned to things that only a few knew, and the fact that the inquisitors knew these things was troubling. On the seventh day, they were taken planet-side.

Finally, they were reunited with each other, as well as with most of those who had been ill. Only Kayra and Dar were not present, as Kayra was still ill and Dar was too big to fit in the room. A voice came over the room's intercom, telling them to take their seats on one side of a conference table in the center of the room. After they did so, the lights in the room dimmed, and they saw twelve people enter the room through the door, but weren't able to see their faces, as all they could see were the silhouettes in the light coming through the open door. A small spotlight came on, shining on the person at the head of the table.

He looked familiar to them, but they couldn't quite identify him. He looked to be in his early thirties, with faded blue hair showing some blonde roots, and a lean build. However, he looked as if he had been carrying a heavy burden on his mind lately. He took a deep breath, and began to speak.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am Commander Max Sterling, of the Robotech Expeditionary Force. I know you may find this hard to believe, but this is the year 2022. In 2020, the REF, led by Admirals Rick and Lisa Hunter, left Earth for the Robotech Masters homeworld of Tyrol. Unfortunately, we and the Masters passed each other in transit. When we arrived at Tyrol, it was being invaded by a race known as the Invid. In response to distress calls from the surface, we attacked and drove off the Invid, only to suffer major damage to the SDF-3's fold systems. It was estimated that it would take five years to repair the damage. Luckily for the Earth, the Masters didn't have the Protoculture resources needed to fold to Earth, so their ships won't arrive there for at least another eight years, and we should be back there waiting for them when they show up.

"After the Invid were defeated, we were approached by a group of XTs calling themselves the Sentinels . Essentially, they were the resistance leaders from the former holdings of the Masters. While they hadn't been thrilled with the Masters domination, their subsequent enslavement by the Invid was unbearable. They had stood up against the Invid separately, only to be defeated and stuck into a zoo belonging to the Invid Regent. After we defeated the Regent's forces at Tyrol, they broke out of their captivity and came to us for assistance. We came to the realization that they were essentially fighting for the same purposes that we were, and together, we could join together and make sure that neither the Masters nor the Invid could ever threaten us again. A large part of our forces, led by the Admirals, joined the Sentinels, to attempt to liberate our allies worlds. The rest of the REF stayed behind with Dr. Lang and T. R. Edwards in order to repair the SDF-3 and defend Tyrol from future attacks.

"We had an early success on Karbarra, a planet of ursines. From there, we traveled to Praxis, only to find that it had been cleared of its population of Amazons. While most of us were investigating the surface, the Regent sprang a trap on us, destroying most of the Sentinels ship. Worse, the planet was unstable, and we barely managed to escape prior to its self-destruction. We then traveled to Garuda, where we found you. Besides the six of you that had been exposed, the Admirals and two others of our group had been captured and deliberately exposed. Then, in the mission to rescue them, my wife was exposed as well." He paused for a moment, then continued.

"It was after the Invid defeat that we picked up your distress call. We were wary at first, but it soon came clear that your predicament was impossible to fake. After picking you up, we left part of our forces with your ship in order to make it spaceworthy again, then folded here, to Haydon IV, so everyone that was exposed to the hin could be treated. Here, we managed to defeat the Invid with the help of the Praxians, who had been brought here as slaves by the Invid Regis, the Regent's estranged mate. Four days ago, your ship arrived here from Garuda. The Haydonites, Karbarrans, and our own techs have been working on it ever since, and it should be fully functional within a week.

"You may be wondering why your colleague, Kayra, is still in the hospital. Miriya is still there as well. Both had two complications to their exposure. The first is that they are both Zentraedi, and races that have ties to Protoculture, such as Zentraedi, Tyroleans, and Invid, have more adverse reactions to hin exposure. The other, more pressing complication is that both are pregnant; Miriya is about six weeks along, Kayra about two weeks. As pregnant humans have never been exposed to the hin before, nobody knows exactly how the exposure will affect them or the ... the children." Max was starting to crack under the strain. Now everyone knew why he was under so much strain, and Shannon was quickly joining him in that position. Max stepped out of the light for about a minute, where some of the people to his side helped him regain his composure.

"You may have a hard time believing what I have just told you, but, nevertheless, it is true. There is another thing I must tell you as well. Cabell, one of our allies from Tyrol, and the Haydonites believe that, not only have you jumped forward in time, but you have also jumped from one reality to another. Aside from the difference in the result of your mission as compared to the result on record, there is the old theory that an object cannot be at two places at the same time. Here is the evidence. Lights, please."

When the lights came on, the Highlanders were shocked to find older versions of themselves sitting on the opposite side of the table. To Max's left were the five VT pilots, and to the right were the six techs. The younger Danielle took one look at the older version of herself and fainted.

"Corpsman," Max spoke into the comm unit on the table, "Bring in those smelling salts I requested ."

"I see you planned ahead," Scott said to Max, taking the news in stride.

"Now do you understand our situation?" Max asked. "It took the last week just to confirm that you were you. From the comparison of your interviews to what our group remembers, the history of your universe is the same as ours up until the time of your mission. Our Highlander group's mission was flawless; yours ended with a short in the fold computer that sent you here, in a way fold generators were never expected to function. That you even ended up in a semi-habitable system is a miracle; arriving as you did, during a rare time when there was someone here both willing and able to help you, could not have been anything short of divine intervention." He paused for a second, then added, " There are also a few other differences between time lines as well. In this time line, Shannon Freeman never married Kayra Marinoni, nor did she become pregnant. In fact, they had a fight on the return flight from the moon, and didn't speak to each other for the last six years, until she arrived here with Breetai's forces earlier this week. Only now are they attempting reconciliation, although she has already had to go back to Tyrol on the Valivarre. Do any of you have any questions that I might be able to answer?"

"What are we going to do now," Janet blurted out, visibly upset. "We just can't stay here!"

"Calm down, Sergeant Freeman. We have people working on the Korra'ti's computers right now, seeing if they might be able to plot a reverse course for you. It is partially for that purpose that we are sending you to Tyrol."

"Why Tyrol?" Scott asked.

"We want to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. First, Dr. Lang may be able to help in a way the others can't. We also want to send you with some troops to aid him; Edwards' plots are coming to a head, and, while Breetai, Wolfe, and Vince Grant are on their way there, their ships only have superluminal drives, whereas the Korra'ti has a fold generator. Even if you leave three days from now, as scheduled, you should still beat the others back by a full day. The mission is to be a covert one, with your counterparts from this universe acting as your teammates and guides. As the Korra'ti doesn't exist, so to speak, Edwards won't be expecting you."

"How will we be able to get close enough to the planet without being detected?" Scott was uptight about the whole thing, and he had been debriefed upon recovery three days before. "Surely the planetary defenses will pick up our defold and approach."

"Good question. The answer is two-part. You will fold to a spot on the far side of Fantoma, away from Tyrol. The Korra'ti is so small in comparison to the planet that the gravity fluctuation would be within the accepted norm of the planet's field, and won't be picked up. As for getting close enough to launch, The Korra'ti was one of six experimental ships made by the Robotech Masters. They were equipped with experimental energy dampers on the hull that kept all energy use inside the ship from being picked up outside the hull. They also absorb radar scans as well, meaning that the ships could only be spotted by either Protoculture sensors, such as the Invid have, or by sight. The former was an oversight by the Scientists who created the system, as the system was made to help track down the SDF-1. Unfortunately for the Zentraedi aboard the first two ships, the SDF-1 had Protoculture sensors as well, in the mechanism that fired the main gun. It was those sensors that fired the main gun on Macross Island, and the two ships it destroyed were the first two of the cloaked type. Two more were destroyed by the Grand Cannon, and the fifth of these ships was the Ghost Ship destroyed in March of 2016. The last ship, the Korra'ti, was scrapped in this universe that same year, two years before the existence of the system was discovered by researchers translating the entire contents of the computers aboard the Factory Satellite and Breetai's flagship.

"However, your Korra'ti still exists, and its system is still functional. You should be able to come within 2000 miles of Tyrol with no chance of being spotted. We have also fabricated some improved versions of the dampers which have been fitted on both halves of four Legios. You will be able to fly down in them and be undetected until you have to land. Look at this map;" Max hit a switch in front of him that caused a 3-D map of Tiresia to appear on the table. " The most recent intelligence indicates that this building is REF Base Tyrol's HQ. Once there, you are to go to the brig area in the basement. In Cell number 14-A, there is a secret passage leading to the building where Dr. Lang has his planet-side labs. You will be given a packet before you leave that identifies you and your problem, and also contains a synopsis of the Sentinels mission so far." Someone knocked at the door, and gave a slip of paper to Max when he opened the door

"I have some good news for the younger group here; Kayra came out of her coma a few minutes ago, and is asking for her husband. Jean says that if she recovers enough by tomorrow night, she can go with you to Tyrol, but she has to stay on the Korra'ti while she's there, because of her condition. I don't see any need to drag this out any longer, so if you have any more questions, see me over the next two days." Max left the room, probably to check on his own wife.

"Scott?"

"Yeah,...Scott?"

"This is going to take a little getting used to."

"I know. We'll have to figure out a way for the others to make it clear which one they want to talk to. We both can't keep answering in stereo every time someone calls to one of us."

"I'm worried about something, Scott, old chap." the younger said, with a fake British accident.

"Ouch! No old jokes, please!"

"Sorry. But if Kayra's two weeks pregnant, then that means she conceived during the fold between dimensions. Do you think that it could affect the baby in any way, even if you ignore the hin exposure?"

"I don't know; ask Jean if you get the chance. Come down here to my room; I want to show you something I came across on board the SDF-3. Do you remember those old Speed Racer comics that Dad used to have?"

"Yeah. We must have read them so many time the covers fell off."

"While we were orbiting Tyrol, I was playing a trivia game with some other pilots, and I found out that Speed Racer used to be a TV show 50 years ago. It was a Japanese cartoon translated into English, and it was shown for years back in the 1970 s. I checked in the SDF-3's library to see if there was any information on it, but all I could find were some other Japanese TV shows, none of them translated. I copied them and watched them, just for the heck of it. One short-lived series gave me the creeps, though. I was going to show it to Max or Admiral Hunter when the Sentinels showed up. I absent-mindedly took the disc into the Alpha with me when we scrambled, and I forgot about it until I found it under my seat the other day. Take a look at this." He put the laserdisc into the player.

"This series was the third of a group that had similar concepts, but unrelated stories. The first was Superdimensional City Megaroad; the second, Superdimensional Century Orguss. The last was called Superdimensional Calvary SOUTHERN CROSS." Scott emphasized the last title.

"So?"

"Do these mecha look familiar to you?"

"Those are Logans and Hovertanks! Are you sure this isn't a practical joke?"

"Positive. Check out these two top brass, especially the Second in command."

"It can't be! That's Bullethead Leonard and Rolf Emerson!"

"Still not convinced? Then look at these three - The blonde, her companion, and the alien warrior. Now look what the alien's driving."

"I don't recognize any of them."

"Look at this, then," the elder Scott said as punched up a split screen. " The blonde on the left, Dana Sterling on the right. Now, her best friend on the left, Vince and Jean Grant's son, Bowie, on the right. By the way, the Grants and Sterlings left their kids with Emerson when they came on this mission, and from what I've been told about this series, the kid that looks like Bowie IS named Bowie, and is the son of the Emerson duplicate. In real life, Emerson is Bowie's godfather."

" This can't be real, or it has to be a coincidence."

"No chance. None of us in Highlander had been planet-side on Tyrol before I found this. Lastly, the alien and his mecha to the left, Cabell's assistant, a Zor clone at top right, and below it, a picture of a Tyrolean Leader Bioroid. And get this; the name of the alien race is the ZOR."

"OH MY GOD!"

"Now, other than Emerson and the Grant boy, most of the names and the setting are unconnected to anything we know, but everything looks too much like something or someone that actually exists. Even the command center for the show's military looks like the new ASC global headquarters in Monument!"

"I still find this too much to put any faith into its reality! Maybe Lang's mecha designers watched this show as kids and made the mecha look like those they saw on TV. There's been a lot of strange coincidences before. Remember reading about the Normandy Crossword in history class?"

"I hope you're right pal, cause I ve got a bad feeling about Earth's future."

**Chapter Six:**

"The Legios Fighter System is the ultimate fighting machine. Whole, it has tremendous firepower and speed. Separated, it is two independent mecha where only one had appeared before, adding to the element of surprise. The Legios has three fighting configurations as a whole, and each component has three separate modes as well. It can function as a fighter, bomber, troop carrier or surveillance craft, and is equally good in all of these functions. The only way we could improve it would be to make it invisible."

- Dr. R. Burke, in a briefing on the Legios, 04/12/20

"Dar, How have you been? I haven't seen you since they treated us.

"A lot better, Scott, especially now that I ve been promoted and given command of the Korra'ti."

"Of course you know, Dar, that if we ever do make it back home, you'll go back to being a plain old Lieutenant again."

"I don't mind; at least I'll have some command experience by then. By the way, have you met any of my crew yet?"

"No. Where did they come from?"

"The stasis pods aboard the ship. As soon as she was sealed and pressurized, Cabell and I started waking them and indoctrinating them into the joys of free will. We borrowed some of Breetai's forces extra Pods, both the old kind as well as some that had been built for Micronized troops. The Haydonites were even able to modify the Korra'ti's Protoculture Chamber for sizing as well as cloning, so we could use the smaller pods."

"How about the living quarters? I don't want to get stepped on in my sleep by a sleepwalking Zentraedi."

"One of the old crew areas has been cleaned up, and some REF pre-fab buildings, as well as some Haydonite ones, were put up inside. The area is for you short people only, so you don't have to worry about sleepwalkers. Each person will have private quarters, and we ve stocked up on REF ration packs, so you won't have to eat anymore of that wallpaper paste anymore."

"By the way, Dar, who's gonna help out on the bridge? If I remember correctly, mostly warriors were kept in stasis, not bridge crew or officers."

"You're right about that, Scott. Only two of the sleepers had bridge experience, both of them old friends of mine. Fortunately, the Haydonites installed human-sized stations in the command bubble as well as repairing the full-sized ones down below. Maria's bunch and Kayra are going to stay up here and help out, while Maria's counterpart and yours will be flying the rest of you down to the Tyrolean surface for the mission. There's only room enough for five armored persons in the back of the Legios anyway.

"Armor?"

"You don't think we would send you into a possible combat area without any protection, do you?"

"I guess not. What weapons will we have, if we're going in armed?"

"The latest in Protoculture weaponry, from what I hear. It was developed on Mars, but it wasn't until recently that Lang and Burke figured out how to make the compact energy source needed for it to function at maximum performance. It has three power settings; a low-power pistol mode, in case you just want to wound your target, a high power mode that will cut through old RDF body armor like water, and an energy rifle mode that is almost as deadly as a GU, but is smaller than a standard human assault rifle. Most Zentraedi, myself included, used to laugh at human sidearms; we don't anymore."

"I can tell that you ve been studying this dimension fairly thoroughly, Dar. Any reason for that?"

"I figure if we ever do get back home, the knowledge I bring back might help me keep the rank I ve been given here."

"I don't blame you. I'll be back in about four hours with the rest of Highlander to move in, so leave the light on for us, OK?

"The what... Oh, I get it. See you then, Scott."

"Sir, defold is commencing."

"Thank you, Sergeant White. Highlander Task Group, report to the lower Mecha Bay."

"We're already here, Dar."

"Fine, Scott. Is Lt. Commander Freeman ready for takeoff?"

"In a minute, Commander. I'm going over the use of the new rifles with the others. I don't want them to blow up things when a simple flesh wound is needed."

"Understood, but you are to board the Legios and move into the airlock in ten minutes. The mecha have to be sitting on the exterior hull before we get out of Fantoma's shadow, so opening the airlock won't give us away."

"Wilco, Commander. We're boarding now. See you after this mess is over."

Back in the cargo bay of the Beta component, Scott and Shannon were talking about the mission and related things.

"Scott, I'm worried about leaving Kayra up here. What if the Invid show up and attack the ship?"

"Kayra's a big girl, Shannon. She can handle herself just fine. In fact, she's only been out of the hospital for a couple of days, and Dar's already made her his weapons officer."

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

They were interrupted by Scott the Elder calling back from the Alpha cockpit. "Scott, this is it. Are you guys ready back there?"

"Yeah. Any time you're ready Scott."

"Then hang on back there folks; we're on our way!"

The next ten minutes were warm, to say the least, and more than a little uncomfortable, despite the padding added to the bay. The landing was uneventful, though, mainly due to the fact that any potential resistance was preoccupied by the commotion going on in the center of Tiresia.

"Guys, turn on your receivers back there!" Scott yelled over the tacnet. We got here a bit later than we thought we would. Edwards made his move against Lang, but he's been thwarted. However, he seems to have some sort of control over the Invid Inorganics left behind by the Regent, and he's using them to cover his escape."

"InorWHATS?"

"Inorganics; inanimate terror machines. Some look like skeletal Invid mecha, others like giant sabertooth tigers, but they're all bad news." He mechamorphed the Legios into Guardian, and set down. "OK, everybody out! We're behind schedule. Our target building is 800 meters to the south."

They picked their way through the rubble, having to fight a couple of Cougars along the way. After a fifteen minute hike, they reached their objective, which was under guard.

"Hey, those two aren't RMP!" Janet said, "Who are they?"

"I recognize them;" the older Scott replied, " They're from Ghost, and probably part of Edward's coup attempt."

"Should we take them?" the younger Scott asked.

'Why the hell not?" Scott said, as he walked around the corner and up to the guards. As he approached them, he started smiling.

"Halt!"

Scott stopped, and, still with the stupid grin on his face, asked "Can T.R. come out and play, or is he still grounded?"

The two Ghosts raised their weapons in order to shut up the wiseass before them, only to get clobbered from behind by the other Scott and his sister.

"Two down, the rest of the squadron to go."

"I hope not, Jan. Let's move! Maria?" The elder Scott yelled to his copilot and lover.

"Yeah, Scott?"

"Stay here and guard these two, and take their place in case someone else comes along. The last thing we need is to let anyone know we're here. When we've secured the cell area, we'll call for you."

"Roger."

That short conversation spoke volumes to the younger Scott. So this is what the relationship he and Maria had started during the repair of the Korra'ti on the Moon had led to. But there were still some questions in his mind. Why hadn't the two ever gotten married? There seemed to be something ... lacking, for lack of a better word, about their relationship that he couldn't identify.

"Well, Scott? Are you coming along, or are you going to keep stargazing?"

"Sorry, Scott. I had something on my mind."

They entered the building slowly, watching every step for more Ghosts, but none were to be found until they approached the cell block. They dispatched the outside guard with a stun pistol, then listened to see if anyone was inside.

"Scott, do you here what I hear?" The younger asked the older.

"Yeah; it sounds like Edwards himself. Are you ready? On the count of three we go in... one, two, NOW!" They kicked open the door, and rushed in.

In the hallway before them, an interesting scene was unfolding. A man with flowing black hair had just killed a Ghost with his bare hands, and was moving toward Edwards. Edwards was pulling something out of his jacket; a laser derringer.

"Edwards!" The younger Scott yelled, instinctively firing his Gallant. But since he wasn't accustomed to the gun yet, only one shot hit, and then it only hit Edwards' gun by accident. Edwards howled as the gun was torn out of his hands, but still had enough sense to run around the corner and out the fire door before he could be shot at again. Unfortunately, one of the wild shots had winged Edward's other attacker, upsetting his attack and sending him to the floor. They ran to help him.

"Are you OK? I didn't mean to hit you, man."

"Don't worry about it. You saved my life, and I didn't deserve it. Is Minmei all right?"

"Minmei? Oh." Only then did Scott notice that this man had been protecting someone from Edwards, and she was pretty shaken up by her ordeal. "She's OK. You're Lynn-Kyle!" he said, just then recognizing Minmei's distant cousin and former co-star.

"Once I was, But no more. I found out there is no black and white like I used to think."

"I can tell, if your uniform is any indication." The other Scott added in as he bandaged Lynn-Kyle's shoulder. " There, that does it. Can you to take care of yourselves if we leave you here?"

"Yeah, I guess so. Where are you going?"

"Do you know which of these cells is 14-A?"

" The tunnel? Forget about it. I was going to use it to get us out of here, but Edwards had discovered it and had put two Cougars in it to prevent unwelcome guests."

"Great..." Scott hit the transmit key to his link with Maria. "Maria, meet us at the back door. We're going to have to get to Lang on foot."

"Hear ya, love. I'm on my way."

"Hey, wait a second;" Lynn-Kyle said, just then noticing the resemblance between the two Scotts. "Are you two brothers or something?"

"Or something." The younger replied. "I'm a quantum cat a long way from my normal scratching post."

"Quantum cat?"

"Dimensional analog; it comes from a book I found while researching my predicament. I'm from a parallel universe, as are the rest of the people here besides you, Minmei, and the other me. It wasn't our idea to go dimension-hopping, but we had a fold generator go weird on us and here we are."

"Whatever you say. You'll need help to find your way to Dr. Lang. Tiresia's changed a lot since the Sentinels left, Commander Freeman, and you'll need a guide."

'What about Minmei? You two can't go traipsing through the middle of a war zone without weapons or armor, and even if she did she would be a liability."

"No I wouldn't," Minmei said. "I may have sneaked my way onto this mission, but once we got here I joined the REF just like the rest of you. Give me a gun and I can use it."

"She's got a point, Commander. There's a small armory though the door that Edwards used. We should be able to get rifles and body armor there."

"All right, but remember; I'm not responsible for you two. You get killed, it's your own fault."

"Agreed."

Ten minutes later, they joined Maria at the back door. Unfortunately, so did a couple dozen Cougar Inorganics.

"Maria, look out!" The older Scott yelled, but too late. Maria never knew what hit her as two Cougars pounced on her from behind, ripping her to shreds despite her body armor. "MARIA!" he screamed again, tears running down his face. He charged into the thickest grouping of Inorganics, shooting anything that moved. The others, led by his younger counterpart, tried to cover him with their weapons, but he was downed by a claw swipe by one of the last remaining Cougars.

"Quick, get him back into the building!" Scott yelled. The others quickly complied, and they took off the wounded Scott's body armor once they got him inside. "How is he?"

"He'll live, if we can get him to an aid station within the next hour or so, but there's not enough left of Maria to identify." Todd said, proving once again that he was the master of tactlessness. Scott was borderline as it was, after seeing the counterpart of his lover killed, then his own doppleganger wounded, and making light of the situation didn't help. Lynn made this clear to Todd by kicking him in the shin immediately after he said that. "Sorry, Scott. We will need something to carry him in, though. He won't be able to stand, let alone walk, for a few days. As it is, I ve drugged him so silly that he won't feel anything for quite some time.

"Jan?"

"Yes, Scott?"

"Do you think you can fly the Legios?"

"I think so. From the way the others talked, as long as you don't mess with the separation and reconnection stuff, it's easier to fly than a VF-1. Do you want me to go get it?"

"Yeah, and take Shannon and Lynn with you. God knows what you might run into out there. Hurry back as quick as you can."

Janet motioned to her cousin and younger brother, who followed her out the door. "We're gone."

Todd and Scott cared for the wounded Scott, making the most of their paramedic training to stop the bleeding. While they were busy with that, Kyle and Minmei were getting reacquainted as well. Soon, they heard noises outside the building, but it was too early for it to be the others returning.

"Kyle, What's going on out there?"

"Inorganics, hundreds of them. They're climbing the building!"

"Do you think the others made it out of the area before they arrived?"

"I don't know, but..."

"Scott, this is Janet;" a call came over the net. "Get everybody clear of the lobby."

"What are you going to do?"

"Just be ready to run to the Beta when we land, and you and Kyle get into the cockpit. Todd and Minmei will have to carry Scott into the back."

"OK, we're clear."

Janet fired a full volley of missiles from the Alpha into the building face, taking out a large number of Inorganics and making a hole big enough to bring the hovering Legios through. "All aboard!"

"We're on our way. Kyle, don't get into the cockpit until the others get into the back, so we can cover them."

"Understood, Lieutenant."

They got into the cockpit just as the first Inorganics came through the hole. "Jan, get us out of here!"

"Hold on, bro!" Janet hit all thrusters full blast, setting the lower part of the building on fire as she flew out of the building, a Cougar hanging on to the Beta's left wingtip for about a half-mile before falling off. "Scott, we're lucky we came out of this with only two casualties."

"What makes you say that?"

"That building was Edwards' base of operations, and the only reason we met as little resistance as we did was because Ghost was busy fighting the other squadrons in space. When I hit the building, Edwards was pulling out. Ghost hijacked a just-completed SDF-7 class ship, and they're going to make a run toward Optera."

"Where did you hear all of this?"

"I was talking to the Wolfe Pack on my way in. In fact, they attacked the building right after we left. Kyle, where should we head?"

"Check the center of the city. Since the Inorganics came from the Royal Hall, like I did, I'd assume that the fighting there is over."

"Sounds good to me."

As it turned out, there was a field hospital set up at the Royal Hall, so they put down there.

"Unidentified craft, identify yourself! You did not appear on our sensors as you approached."

"Let me handle this;" Kyle said. " This is Lieutenant Lincoln Isle of Dr. Lang's group, along with personnel from Highlander Group, Skull Squadron. We have a wounded person on board to drop off and vital information for Dr. Lang."

"Skull Squadron? How the hell did you get back here?"

"That's what the information for Dr. Lang's about."

"Get out of the VT, slowly." They all climbed out.

'Which of you is in charge?"

"I am, Lt. Scott Freeman."

"You can't be Scott Freeman. You look like him, but one, he's older, and two, he's a Lieutenant Commander."

"Pat, is that you?"

"Yes, my name's Pat, but you aren't Scott!"

"Trust me, I'm Scott Freeman, but not the one you know. Your friend Scott is our wounded person. Maria just got julianned by a bunch of those Goddamn Invid Cats, and he went berserk when it happened. As for me being Scott Freeman as well, that's what my information is concerning."

"Bring your wounded person over here and I'll see for myself whether or not to believe you." When he saw his friend on the stretcher, then looked at the other Scott, he took a deep breath. "Well, I'll be damned."

"Or at least diked." Scott added, followed by moans from the rest of the group.

"You ARE Scott Freeman!" Pat replied. "Only he could make a joke that bad!"

"Thanks for giving me the chance to explain myself. How can we talk to Dr. Lang?"

"He's too busy right now, with the coup attempt and everything, but Dr. Burke is free. Do you want to talk with him?"

"He'll have to do. Where is he?"

"Down the hall and to the left at the first intersection. Ask any of the Rumps down there, and they'll lead you to him. Only God knows what all Edwards was doing down there, but Burke wants to find out."

**Chapter Seven:**

"I guess the incident on that other Tyrol was the turning point of my relationship with Maria Perez. Even though the Maria that died wasn't the one I was involved with, she was still Maria Perez in every way, and seeing the person you love get diced can have adverse effects on your love life. Still, nothing could have prepared me for what I would have to go through with my future wife..."

- Gen. Scott Freeman(REF, Ret.) - Memories of the Madness: An Unabashed Autobiography

"Amazing!" Dr. Burke said, studying the records that Cabell had sent from Haydon IV on the Korra'ti and its crew. "So you five are from a parallel universe. Theoretically, fold engines shouldn't be capable of such things, but that's Earth theory, not Zor 's. Some of the records Lang found aboard the SDF-1 and the ships that chased it hint that the folds they made were through both time and space, and possibly other dimensions, but we always thought that was thrown in to keep the Zentraedi from trying to take their destinies into their own hands. After all, if you were told that fooling around with something could result in your death, would you do it anyway? However, your presence indicates the records were right and we were fools not to believe them. Emil and I will have to take an in-depth look at the Korra'ti's database before we can make any guesses on how we can get you back home. However, you can do us a favor."

"How?"

"Grant and Wolfe brought back a group of Praxians and Garudans who volunteered for REF training. They have had some experience with the Sentinels, as well as some formal training in the last few days. They, along with a handful of Bioroid pilots and other Tyroleans trained to use REF mecha, wish to be taken to Optera to go after Edwards and the Regent, but Breetai doesn't have room for them on the Valivarre. We were wondering if you could take them there for us. Not only would it bolster Breetai's forces, but the sight of a ZENTRAEDI ship would send both the Regent and Edwards into full-scale panic! You will have to wait a while before you fold, so you'll get there the same time as Breetai, so you'll have some time to prepare.

"Fine with us. It'll give us time to rest and practice with the new VTs."

"I hate to be the one to tell you, but you'll be stuck on the Korra'ti for the duration of the mission. You're more valuable to us as live ship's crew than dead pilots."

"But..."

"No buts. Do you want to go or not?"

"Are you kidding? After what that dirtbag's done to my counterpart here? I want his head. Call me when the departure time is set."

"Scott, how do you feel?"

"Like shit. Did you get Maria? She deserves a lot better than to be left in the middle of a road."

"I sent Shannon and Todd after her body. I figure it will remind them just how mortal we all are. They don't take war seriously enough."

"Scott, did Edwards get away?"

"Yeah, but we're going after him. I was wondering about something, Scott. Why wasn't Edwards arrested in 2016 because of what you overheard on the Factory Satellite?"

"I don't really know. For some reason, while I was in transit back to there from the Moon, both Max and I forgot everything - EVERYTHING - that we discussed. In fact, we completely forgot the incident until you guys showed up on Garuda. It wasn't until we interviewed you on Haydon IV that we started to remember what had happened back then. We still don't remember it all."

"Rest bro. That's all I needed to know."

The next week was spent getting used to the new setup on the Korra'ti. The entire ship had undergone further modifications, to the point that one of Dolza's Zentraedi wouldn't have recognized the ship as Zentraedi from the inside. The Haydonites that had been working on the ship landed on Tyrol on the sixth day, to be replaced by the Bioroid pilots and Sentinel VT pilots. These, added to the Zentraedi already on board, made the ship look like a microcosm of the Sentinels, with only the yet-unliberated worlds of Spheris and Peryton not represented on board. A spirit of camaraderie filled the ship's crew, the likes of which had never been seen aboard a Zentraedi vessel before. One enterprising pilot, a member of Skull that had been injured in the initial battle with the Invid and had been left on Tyrol, had a brisk business selling T-shirts emblazoned with the words(in Zentraedi) of the most time-honored T-shirt logo - with a twist. The shirts read "My squadron went with the Sentinels, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt", available in Medium, Large, X-Large, Karbarran, and Zentraedi. Finally, the time came for the Korra'ti to fold, as to arrive in the Tzuptum system at the same time as Breetai.

''Fold in 10 seconds, Commander R'ykandar."

"Thank you, Gamaliel."

"Commander, a Legios just entered the ship's foldsphere!"

"Great." The ship folded at that instant, arriving in the target system ten seconds later. When the ship had settled down, R'ykandar hailed the Legios. "Korra'ti to unidentified aircraft; identify yourself, then report on board immediately!"

"Dar, why did you guys leave without me?"

"Freeman, you lunatic! You're supposed to still be in the hospital!"

"Dar, I told you he'd want to come."

"I know, Scott; I just didn't think he''d actually do something this stupid to come along. Gamaliel, clear him for Airlock One, Hangar One."

"Yes, sir."

"Does his brother know about this yet?" Dar asked the younger Shannon, who was sitting at one of the new consoles in the bubble with his wife and both Janets.

"No, sir." Shannon answered. "My counterpart and his Kayra are getting 'reacquainted', now that she's been micronized again. Some things never change."

"Just for once, Shannon," Scott ordered, "I'll let you interrupt 'yourself' this time. General Quarters."

"Done, brother of mine."

"Dar, I still can't believe that Scott is going in with the attack wave with his injuries."

"It's his right, although his decision is based on getting his revenge on Edwards and the Regent. If we had a choice, we could stop him, but he outranks both of us on this mission because technically, neither of us are members of the REF. Just be glad he isn't pulling rank and taking command of the ship or we would all be in trouble."

"I ... understand why he's doing it, though."

"Scott, I hope you aren't letting what happened in Tiresia affect your relationship with Maria."

"It's hard not to. She may have been a dimensional analog, but she was still Maria."

"I guess coping with loss is the down side of having emotions. We Zentraedi never had that problem with death, but then, we never had the good things either. Sometimes I wish I could find a mate the way Lord Breetai did here."

"Look on the bright side, Dar. You may not ever find a mate, but a lot of captains have been married to their command. The command of a ship is a lot like marriage. In a way, the ship is your wife, and your crew, your children."

"I guess so, but that means I'll be risking my family every time I go into combat."

"That's the misfortunes of war. You'll have casualties, but that's to be expected as much as it's dreaded. It will be hard to deal with, but life has to go on for the survivors. It's when you stop caring about casualties that you should give up command."

"Commander, Lord Breetai has launched his attack. Shall I release our fighters?"

"All fighters and pods, launch at will!"

"Yes, sir."

"Janet 'Senior', it's time for you to join the rest of your squad for your mission."

"On my way, Captain." Janet stood and practically ran to the elevator, hoping to have some time to browbeat her Scott for his coming along.

"Scott, get to your station. We may need to use the ship's weapons if they send fighters after us."

"Yeah. I have a feeling it's going to be a long day."

**Chapter Eight:**

"They always said that the living would envy the dead..."

-Tina Turner, "One of the Living"

Lt. Commander Scott Freeman had only one thought on his mind - revenge. Revenge for the way Edwards and Zand had messed with his mind in 2016; revenge for his friends that had died aboard the Farrago, destroyed by the Invid after Edwards told the Regent where the Sentinels were heading. But most important; revenge for Maria's death under the claws of Edward's Inorganics.

He wasn't sure at first whether or not he had wanted revenge that badly; after all, the first rule of war is that there will always be deaths. That was before he found out that Maria was three weeks pregnant when she was killed. It was then that he swore that Edwards and the Regent would die, or else he would die trying to send them to hell.

Now, as he began his attack run, he realized that it was unlikely he would get a chance to kill either one. Hundreds of Invid were around him, and suddenly he started picking up what sounded like Minmei's voice over the Tacnet. It was a perverse form of "We Can Win" that Edwards evidently had either forced Minmei to sing during her captivity, or manipulated digitally. It was driving the Zentraedi crazy; Scott didn't dare think how bad it could have been had it been done live instead of on tape. Instead of instilling fear and hopelessness in him, as it did to the Zentraedi, his hate and anger towards the enemy filled him. He flew into the thickest part of the Invid, GU's blazing.

Two minutes later, his missiles and guns had dropped a score of the Invid. He was out of the pack of scouts and troopers now, heading in the direction he had seen Breetai's forces moving earlier. Unbelievably, he saw one of his targets ahead - the Regent. However, he was out of GU rounds and had only a dozen missiles left. He would have only one chance.

As he prepared to fire his missiles, a shock trooper darted into his path, less than 20 feet away, and moving at a far lower speed. The missiles went awry as the two mecha collided. The hapless trooper fell like a stone, its pilot killed by the concussion, and the vessel shattering on impact with the ground. Scott hadn't fared much better. The impact had jarred loose the empty Beta component, and only Scott's expert piloting got the Alpha's engines restarted and the VT level, after they shut down from the sudden loss of compression after the Beta thruster ducts were torn away. Unfortunately, the extent of the damage was making itself known. Half of the left wing, damaged in the collision, ripped off with a loud CRACKK. Furthermore, the Alpha couldn't transform. He struggled with the controls, to little avail. The plane was going down, with him or without him.

He quickly made up his mind. Ahead was the Regent, who was beginning to square off against a Zentraedi in Power Armor; probably Breetai, from the size of the latter. Nearly out of control, it took the fly-by-wire system, the normally space-only steering thrusters, and all he had in him to keep the Alpha on a level heading toward the Regent. He set the self-destruct for impact, nearly losing control as he had to take one hand off of the control stick. He readied himself for the end.

"I'm coming, Maria!" he cried, just as the Alpha impacted into the Regent's side. Both disappeared in a small inferno, the blast throwing Breetai backwards over one hundred meters. When he regained his footing, Breetai went back to the area, and recovered his Power Armor helmet, which had been torn off in his fight with the Regent. He eased it back on his head, over the fresh burns on his neck and head. He said a short Zentraedi lament for the fallen warrior, then went looking for the remainder of his forces.

"R'ykandar, this is Breetai. I am ordering a retreat due to our enemy's psychological warfare. Commander Freeman is dead. He killed the Regent in what the Micronians used to call a kamikaze attack. However, someone is still controlling the Invid forces. I believe we should fall back off-planet, and wait for REF reinforcements. Do you concur?"

The crew of the Korra'ti was stunned, but Scott and Dar passed knowing looks at each other; they had expected something like this. Five seconds passed before Dar answered. "We will withdraw."

"Affirmative. I will relay the recall order to your men as well." Breetai looked around. Already, his mate's forces were pulling out. The well-meaning but inexperienced Sentinel VT pilots had been nearly wiped out, and those who had survived, regardless of race, were evacuating to the Valivarre instead of the Korra'ti, as the latter had no VT repair facilities. As for R'ykandar's Zentraedi, most had already gotten the word, and were on their way back to the Korra'ti. The late Commander Freeman's squad had set down in the hills to the north in VTs retrofitted with cloaking systems based on the Korra'ti's tech. They were to act as scouts for Vince Grant and, hopefully, the Sentinels when they arrived. He blasted his armor into the air, and caught up to and boarded the last departing landing craft.

"Commander, all of our surviving forces have been recovered."

"And the Veritech squadrons?"

"Highlander Task Force is in place at point Delta. All the other squadrons took massive casualties and were evacuated to the Valivarre with Lord Breetai's forces."

"That's just as well. We don't have VT repair facilities. It's too bad we weren't able to test Dr. Lang's new mecha he sent with us." The test pilots had died flying Veritechs, as it was primarily an air battle. "Maybe when Admiral Hunter shows up, he'll let your group test them, Scott."

"I don't think we'll be around then, Dar." Scott sounded extremely worried. "The techs in the fold engine room are reporting a flux in the engines, and they can't shut them down!"

"Attention... Fold in fifteen seconds," a mechanical voice droned over the ship's intercom. "All hands prepare for fold in 5... 4... 3..."

"NOT AGAIN!" Dar and the Highlanders screamed in unison.

"Fold engines activated. Hail Dolza!" A now-familiar sensation came over them, as the space outside the ship went white.

**Chapter Nine:**

"What comes around, goes around." - Old Earth saying

"This can't be happening! Is this ship some kind of cosmic Flying Dutchman?" Scott was visibly upset with this latest turn of events.

"I guess all we can do is wait it out, again." R'ykandar moaned as he slumped back in his command chair, looking and sounding for all the world like a gigantic Henry Gloval.

This fold only lasted three days, most of which was spent analyzing the records left aboard by the REF, which was no longer represented on board. Those records included the history of Earth up to 2020, which would, even if different from their own world's history, be a valuable aid for the RDF if they ever made it back home. Other matters were discussed at this time, but of a more personal & delicate nature.

"Scott?"

"Yeah, Shannon?"

"I'm worried about Kayra. She's only about 6 months along, but she's already as big as someone who's full term with quadruplets. I'm scared, Scott; scared for my wife and my child. What's going on?" He looked like he was about to have a nervous breakdown.

"Don't worry, little bro, everything will be all right;" Scott hugged his brother. "Just you wait and see. We'll take Kayra to the best obstetrician we can find."

"But where will that be? What's to stop us from continually bouncing further along in time and space?"

"It seems too much of a coincidence that we ended up where we did before. We'll be all right, someone out there is looking out for us."

"I wish I could believe that, Scott."

"Commander, we're defolding!" Gamaliel seemed to speak for everyone as he shouted in relief.

"Everyone to your posts;" Dar shouted. "Danielle, give me a position check. Does this system match any in the computers?"

"Star class G, the major planets all match up. It's the Solar System, folks! We're home, I hope." She didn't seem too thrilled with the possibilities.

"What is our position?"

"Between the orbits of Earth and Mars. With our new engines, we can make Earth orbit in 20 minutes."

"Provided we want to. Steve, punch up the astrogational program on the computer, and calculate the date by planetary positions."

"I'm a step ahead of you, Commander. According to the positions, the computer comes up with a date of 12 December 2016, plus or minus 36 hours. I think we're really home!"

"Everyone, quiet down!" R'ykandar yelled to the ecstatic bridge crew. "I'm going to attempt to contact the RDF, just to be sure." He cleared his throat, then hit the transmit key on his command chair.

"This is the Korra'ti calling the RDF Space Patrol. Repeat; This is the RDF Zentraedi ship Korra'ti calling the RDF Space Patrol. Do you read me?"

There was a short pause, then...

"Korra'ti, this is Armor Ten. Where the hell have you guys been? You ve been missing since May!"

"You'd never believe me if I told you. All I can say is that we're glad to be home. By the way, inform Admiral Hunter that he's lost raw material for the SDF-3, but he's gained a fully functional Zentraedi cruiser, complete with crew. We'll explain the whole mess when we get to the Factory Satellite. Our ETA at Little Luna is 25 minutes."

"Roger. Welcome Home."


	2. Book One, Part Two

**Part Two: Tell Me the Secret**

**Chapter One:**

"The Protoculture 'Shapings' are difficult to describe; a quantum semi-sentience that was, at some time, a tabula rasa. However, those that have attached themselves to it, such as Haydon or the original Zor, impart part of themselves to it. It was the former that gave the Shapings their existence, to hold his essence while he waited for his glorious ascension to godhood. The latter that inadvertently strengthened them, trying to understand Haydon. For those who came after, the Shapings show a path to a desired result, but in a manner that serves the purposes of its creator, regardless of how many deaths result. Zand was right, in that the Shapings thrives on violence and death; he was just too blind to see that it would feed on him too, like it does on all its slaves. It is so subtle in warping intentions, that to fight against them almost requires a jujitsu-like strategy, tricking that sentience into expending its energy against itself. Positive emotions can confound it in the short term, but the slightest crack can allow it to twist otherwise pure motives to its own ends. As a result, one has to pick one's battles carefully. Being too obvious, too soon, is more dangerous than doing nothing." - Karen Freeman, introduction to her book, The Plane Truth

The next day was fairly busy, with the crew taking an accounting of themselves and their equipment. For security reasons, they were ordered to stay on the far side of the moon until Max Sterling could come aboard and conduct a preliminary debriefing of Scott and Dar, who were still wondering how their little trip had happened. Instead of a lumbering wreck carrying a skeleton crew of a dozen mecha pilots and a Zentraedi officer, the Korra'ti was now a fully operational ship, with 125 Zentraedi crewmen and living space for an additional 800 human-sized crew and mecha pilots, not counting the original thirteen people. It had started with only one combat-ready artillery pod and a few practice mecha; now, thanks to Breetai in the other universe, they had 20 Male Power Armor suits, 30 REF battlepods, and 3 REF Officer's Pods, the last two types sized for Micronized troops. Also on board was a fully-equipped Horizon-T dropship, loaded with the test mecha and the armor their use required. These mecha, motorcycles that transform into power armor, were pilotless now, as their test pilots had flown with the Sentinel trainees, and if any survived, they had ended up on the Valivarre.

Most importantly, however, they had the new computer on board. The history of the other universe's REF after the year 2020 was stored in the data banks, as was some of the events from prior to the SDF-3 launch. Although there was no guarantee that any of the recorded history would come to pass, the odds were that the differences caused by the Korra'ti's little trip would not make serious changes in Earth history for at least a few months more, especially where non-UEG nations were concerned. This boon of information, sparse as it might be, would please the RMP and the Southern Cross GMP to no end - if they can hold their rivalry down enough to share the information, that is.

Scott's musings were interrupted by an incoming message from Earth.

"Lieutenant Freeman, this is Commander Sterling. T.R. Edwards is currently in route from Luna Base to Earth, to answer to the charges you made months ago. However, his flight has diverted from its planned course, and has shut down their transponders. You and your group are to go out and escort him to the Korra'ti with your Veritechs, to bring him in. Your return spooked him."

'Why hadn't you done something about him before now, Max?"

"Strangely enough, Scott, in the wake of your disappearance, our conversation slipped my mind, until you reminded me of it yesterday, and the investigation of you claims ended with your loss."

Scott stopped, remembering what his counterpart had said in the other dimension. " For some reason. ...both Max and I forgot everything - EVERYTHING - that we discussed. In fact, we completely forgot the incident until you guys showed up on Garuda. ...We still don't remember it all."

"Max, let's discuss this further when we meet again. I've got to go catch a traitor," Scott said,

"See you then, Scott. Good luck in catching him."

"I have a bad feeling it will take more than luck to catch him, Commander. Freeman, out." Scott hit the stop button and turned to see his sister behind him.

"Scott, what was that all about?"

"We have to go get Edwards to take him to trial. As it is, there's nothing to stop him from going straight to Earth and losing himself. All it would take would be one hour in Buenos Aires to get a new name and face."

"Are we going to take the ship, or just the Veritechs?"

"Veritechs only. The TASC may not have gotten the message that we're the good guys."

"How are we going to get him here? We can't have him brought over in a spacesuit, and there's no way I'm letting him in a VT. He's supposed to be as good as Roy Fokker used to be."

"Don't we still have one of those REF dropships in the lower hold? We could bring him back in it."

"If we do that, Scott, that will leave us with only three Veritechs."

"Maybe, but I have another idea. Call Dar, and tell him to meet us at the Protoculture chamber. I want to see if he would like to join us on our trip."

"You want him to fly the Horizon?"

"No, but there's something I want to see aboard it that might come in handy."

"So you want me to be micronized? Why?"

"You can come with us and pilot one of those new pods. For that matter, so can the dozen or so members of the crew who are already micronized; the transport bunkers can hold about ten pods each, but one is half-full with equipment already."

"Wait one minute, Scott," Janet chimed in. "How are we going to get to our Veritechs? Those bunkers aren't connected to the interior"

"Who said anything about putting the Veritechs in a bunker?"

"What do you plan to do then, TOW them?"

"No. I'll take both of you to the shuttle and show you, once Dar's been micronized."

One hour later, they were inside the Horizon dropship.

"Follow me back here, there's something I want to show you," Scott said, walking through the neck compartment. He hit a door switch. "Now, Jan, what does that look like to you?"

"That's the cockpit of one of those REF Veritechs! What's it doing here, and where is the rest of the mecha?"

"The rest of the mecha is attached to the cockpit, which is attached to the bottom of the shuttle. Further back is the entrance to the Legios Beta component, which you'll be flying, should we have to separate. All Edwards will see is the shuttle and three Veritechs, unless we let the Zentraedi out and launch ourselves."

"I'm beginning to understand now, Scott," Dar said. "If he puts up a fight, you won't have to wait for backup to arrive."

"Exactly. Now, go get the others ready. I'll be warming up the shuttle and supervising the loading of the pods while you're gone. We re leaving in 45 minutes." Scott turned then headed for the cockpit of the Horizon.

It took about ten minutes for the Horizon to reach the area that Edwards shuttle was approaching. As it approached, they saw that Edwards was being escorted by four Ghost Riders, which suited Scott just fine. He gave the controls over to Maria, and went with Janet to the Legios. It was from the Alpha cockpit that he hailed Edwards.

"Attention, Ghost Shuttle. This is Lieutenant Scott Freeman of Skull Squadron. I have orders to place Brigadier General Thomas Riley Edwards under arrest, under suspicion of treason, and to transport him to the Robotech Factory Satellite. We ask that you cooperate and turn him over immediately."

There was no response over the com net, although the shuttle had four more blips separate from it.

"Okay, they want to fight, huh? Dar, launch your pods. Janet, we're releasing in five, four, three, two, one - We're free. Maria, get clear." Everyone acknowledged him as he ignited the Legios boosters. "Okay, let's get them, Highlander!"

The combat was mostly short and lopsided toward Highlander. The twelve Pods ganged up on four of the Ghost Riders, and took only minor hits in destroying the VTs. Shannon, Lynn, and Todd quickly disposed of their opponents, the Highlanders natural talent making up for and surpassing their opponents years of experience. However, Scott and Janet had a harder time of it, facing off against Edwards himself.

"Give up, Edwards; you're outgunned."

"Kid, I was killing wimps like you since before you were even born." With that, he launched his wing missiles at them and went to Battloid.

Scott and Janet separated, and went to Battloid mode as well. Scott destroyed some of the incoming missiles with his GU, while Janet shot down the rest with missiles of her own. They got Edwards into a crossfire, Janet diverting Edwards attention with a volley of pyrotechnic missiles while Scott shot the engine/legs off of the Battloid at the knees.

Edwards, his mecha crippled, mass-fired the missiles from his booster pods at them, to distract them as he tried to flee using the booster engines. Scott managed to destroy most of the ones shot at him, and Janet's Beta shaken pretty bad by her missiles destroying Edwards missiles at point-blank range, but both were operational. Scott proceeded to dissect the Battloid further, shooting the pods and the arms off.

"Surrender, Edwards! You're defenseless now."

"You only think you've won, Freeman. I won't stand trial, but I''ll you'll never be rid of me!" They closed on the wreckage, but it self-destructed as they attempted to snare it. The blast rattled Janet severely.

"What did he say? I ve heard about sore losers, but that's pathetic! Janet? Are you all right?"

"You better pilot us both in, Scott," she replied weakly.

"OK; hang on." Scott sent a remote signal to transform the Beta back into Fighter mode, then rejoined them rather clumsily. As he flew back to the Horizon, he pondered Edwards' last words. There would be a lot of explaining to do when they got home.

**Chapter Two:**

"Things had gone bad, very bad, during our absence from Earth. In those seven months of 2016, the tragedy of Camp Alpha had taken place, creating a rift in what was left of Humanity on Earth, which was already devided by the previous year's Brasila Zeetown Massacre. Many Terrans and most Zentraedi were still having trouble believing that we were simply sub-races of the same species, despite blatant proof in the form of genetic tests and the ultimate proof in the form of Dana Sterling. I shudder to think of what Dar, Kayra and Shannon would have had to go through had we not ended up elsewhen. 2016 was the end of the innocence for our generation; it would be up to people like Bowie Grant to help us regain it."

- Gen. Scott Freeman, Memories of the Madness

"Scott, this is as close to Earth as I'm going."

"What are you talking about, Dar?" They were on one of the Factory Satellite's observation decks, looking out at the planet below. Dar was still micronized from the attempt to arrest Edwards, so for a while they could still see each other eye-to-eye. Scott could tell that the cool reception given them by the human contingent aboard was bothering his friend.

"Have you forgotten already what has happened to my people on Earth while we've been gone? Forced micronization, concentration camps, and Leonard and his mercenaries still haven't been taken to task for Zeetown!"

"I know, I know; don't you think I feel the same way? What kind of world will my niece grow up in? It's like civilization's backslid eighty years, to the 1930s and Nazi Germany all over again."

"It's not that bad yet, Scott. Many of my people have fled to the wilderness, to fight back against these injustices. But, I fear that they will only add to the problem instead of helping it. I feel that I can best serve my people by remaining in command of the Korra'ti. But, I'll tell you one thing. I'll never obey any orders from the Southern Cross, especially any coming from Leonard. When the SDF-3 leaves in a few years, I'm going to take my ship and retreat to Io Base, and wait for the REF to return. I don't want to be ordered to slaughter my own people in order to satisfy those bigots' taste for blood."

"Max, Shannon and I will do our best to change things planetside, and we'll support any decisions you make up here - but don't go rogue unless you absolutely have to."

"Thanks; it's nice to know someone has faith in me."

"Another thing; after what we saw on Tyrol, I think it might be a good idea to actually reexamine those theories about the Zentraedi and Tyrolians having roots on Earth. According to the legends, much of Earth's civilizations have their own ties to older ones that they saw as gods and demons, and there were many elements in Tiresia's architecture that were common in Earth's oldest civilizations."

"You think Tyrol was or is connected to the Atlantis myths? That's doubtful. Zentraedi history alone goes back for half a million years-"

"Bullshit. Have you already forgotten what Cabell told us? Exedore was the first Zentraedi, and Cabell and Zor created him. Did Cabell look a half-million years old to you? Besides, Exedore himself admitted three years ago that most of Zentraedi history was an elaborate lie created by the Masters, to keep your race in its place. For instance, the strictures against attacking Micronians were there to keep the Zentraedi from finding out that their Masters were a wimpy little race that could have been easily overwhelmed by their slaves."

"I know. But then, how would you like to be told that your culture began with disco?"

"Ugh. I see your point. But, your people do need to find a reason for calling Earth home, and I believe that this research is as good a place to start as any I ve seen."

"Okay; I'll ask for some volunteers to do the research for me - ironically, a bunch of those religious lunatics that hate us have done stuff like that already, trying to make us out to be the evil offspring of fallen angels from your legends. By the way, I heard that Kayra has already been transferred Earthside, to Brasilia Base. Is she all right?"

"She had to go down there sooner or later, and there was an opportunity to get her down on a slow-descent Reentry Pod cargo drop. It took three hours to get groundside from low orbit; that's only moving about 250 miles per hour vertically. There aren't many obstetricians in orbit, after all, and they definitely needed someone qualified to monitor her condition. She's already bigger than most women who are carrying triplets to full term, yet we know for a fact that she's only carrying the one baby."

"Who's going to be her doctor? Lang?"

"No, he's more of a mechanic than a medical doctor. He may have been an incredible student in college, but his doctorates are in physics and mechanical engineering. He only has masters degrees in medicine and biology, and he had to finish up his doctorate work while serving on the Kenosha. Why someone on full scholarship, with a perfect GPA in FOUR simultaneous majors, would also take NROTC as well is beyond me. As it ended up, the Global War broke out while he was in graduate school, and he got called to active duty to serve as an engineer. He'll consult, though, because of the stuff he's learned from the computers salvaged from the SDF-1."

"Then who will be her doctor?"

"Jean Grant, Lang's best xenobiologist and a M.D. as well. You remember Vince Grant?"

"Yes."

"Jean's his wife, and they are both good friends of the Sterlings. In fact, Jean was the doctor who delivered Dana, and it was through this professional relationship that Vince and Jean first met."

"How did this happen?"

"Well, when Max and Miriya first discovered that they were going to be parents, Miriya was admitted to New Macross Hospital for a week of tests. Claudia Grant - yes, she's the one who died on the SDF-1 fighting Khyron - had just located her brother Vince in the wake of Dolza's attack, and he had come to town in search of work. Claudia decided to visit Miriya at the hospital, and dragged Vince along. Jean, at that point of her career, was in her last month of internship, and she was taking blood samples from Miriya when the Grants arrived. Vince took one look at Jean drawing blood and fainted."

"He WHAT?"

"Actually, he really didn't faint, he was just trying to get the intern's attention. He got it, all right. He managed to talk her into a date, then another, and within three months they were married. By the time Miriya had Dana, Jean herself was two months pregnant."

"Back on the subject of Kayra, tell her that we'll be thinking of her. While few Zentraedi are religious, many of us have adopted some of the philosophies as a means of self control. For example, there's this one theory that collective thoughts actually have some effect on reality on a quantum scale, and that perhaps Minmei somehow served as a catalyst for it back during the defeat o Dolza."

"I'll tell her. I''m glad you decided to be honest with me about your intents."

"Don't mention it. Just do me a favor and don't get too cocky about your dimensional counterpart surviving long enough to be on the SDF-3 mission. This is a completely different battle."

"Don't I know it, although I get the feeling that I'd rather be facing those Hellcats again instead of the debriefing committee."

The debriefing and inquiry into Edward's death began on 20 December. Strangely enough, the only person involved in the mess that participated in the hearings was Rolf Emerson. The Sterlings had their hands full fighting Malcontent bands, and the two Admirals were incommunicado on a holiday vacation they had been planning since Thanksgiving. Max did manage to record a statement in what little free time he had, concerning the events of 29 April 2016 as best he could remember them, and why he hadn't pursued them sooner ("What can you do when your only witness vanishes in a fold accident?"). Scott followed with his testimony on what he had overheard, followed by his observations of the events on Tyrol in 2024 and his conversation with his duplicate about the incident in 2016. Finally, members of the Ghost Riders themselves were questioned by the council.

"I don't know why T.R. hated Admiral Hunter and Admiral Hayes so much," Major Adams testified. "He never fully explained the rationale for his feelings, except to say that they had once left him to die. It also upset him that they were both promoted far above him, despite his seniority."

"About this incident involving Hunter and Hayes;" Rolf asked. "When did it supposedly occur?"

"We were never able to figure that one out ourselves, Colonel. That is, my fellow officers in Ghost and I. Up until Dolza's arrival above Earth, T.R. was on some special duty for some of his friends in the UEDC. He was supposed to join us before the SDF-1 launched back in 2009, but the initial Zentraedi attack caused us to leave much sooner than planned, stranding him. He was still working for the UEDC in 2011, when the fleet attacked. We all thought he had died, but he showed up out of nowhere in early 2012, with that weird faceplate on his head. His face was a total mess underneath it; he must have had a close call sometime in the period he was presumed dead. But back on the subject, the three never served anywhere together prior to 2015, although he was already talking about revenge in 2012. It just didn't make any sense to any of us. One of my fellow squad leaders was a psych major before he dropped out of college to join the Defense Force, and it is his opinion that Edwards felt deprived by the Zentraedi by their killing of Commander Roy Fokker, T.R.'s main adversary in the Global War, and transferred his hatred for Fokker towards those who had killed Fokker and toward Fokker's best friends; Hunter, Hayes, Claudia Grant and Henry Gloval. Grant and Gloval were killed by Khyron, intensifying T.R.'s hatred of Hunter, Hayes and the Zentraedi even more. As for the story about Hunter and Hayes abandoning him to die, he may have fabricated it in his mind to justify his hatred for them. But then, neither my friend nor I are professional psychologists."

"Lieutenant Freeman, does Major Adams' testimony concur with what you saw on the Factory Satellite?"

"Yes, Colonel Hite, it does. Edwards seemed almost obsessed with killing the Admirals. He definitely sounded unhinged during that conversation I overheard, and I think his actions and words from the battle last week speak for themselves. What worries me is that his co-conspirator is still at large."

"The only lead we had was the man you identified as Edwards contact. Unfortunately, he was killed in a lab accident last July. We may never know the identity of the man he referred to as his master. What has Dr. Lang told you about the history you brought back from the other dimension?"

"It is identical to ours up until the events of 13 May of last year, and was 98% accurate from then until Edwards death. Since then, it has been dropping off quickly, as would be expected according to the Butterfly Effect theory of time alteration. The theory states that as more things change, the more things will change, which cause even more changes, and so on, ad infinitum. Of course, the history is Terrocentric, so the only changes that have taken place have been here in our system. However, it appears that those loaded the history into the Korra'ti's memory banks felt that we would be better off not knowing all the events of the next three years, in the case we did return here. Very little is mentioned of the Malcontents, except the events of 2016 and references to an attempt at biochemical warfare in 2018. No disrespect to those present, but the xenophobes made the bed, and the whole world's going to be forced to lay in it, thanks to their actions in Brasilia and Arkansas. If that isn't enough, the Robotech Masters are on their way to Earth, but it will take them until at least 2030 to arrive. Even so, the SDF-3 mission is still needed."

"Why, Lieutenant?" Colonel Hite asked. "Couldn't we just wait for them?"

"It isn't because of the Masters that we need to make the journey. When the other SDF-3 arrived over Tyrol, the planet was being invaded by a race known as the Invid. If we don't go there, the planet's innocent populace will be slaughtered, a populace of people just as human as you or I. There is a scientist there, known as Cabell. Cabell was the mentor of the original Robotech Master, Zor, and they created the first Zentraedi together. We cannot let these people die. Also, there are six races that need our help to rid their homeworlds of the Invid. They are collectively known as the Sentinels. If you doubt that this can be done easily, all that I have described had been done by 2024, and would have ended much sooner if it had not been for Edwards treachery. And it was done without the SDF-3, as well, for the ship had suffered fold engine damage from the first attack by the Invid. Now, Edwards is out of the picture, and we know the Invid's plans before they make them. With the Sentinels as allies, not even the Masters could endanger us. The known universe will be at peace for the first time since the creation of the Zentraedi, and we'll be in the driver's seat. Last night, I drafted this proposal in detail, and each of you have a copy of it somewhere in those piles of testimony. I hereby submit it for consideration."

Ten minutes later Colonel Hite, the chair of the committee, replied. "Lieutenant Freeman, this proposal is well written, and very logical. It will be submitted to the heads of the Armies of the Southern Cross, Robotech Defense Force and United Earth Government, and I can't see any reason why it wouldn't be accepted. After all, the Master's homeworld would be one hell of a bargaining chip with which to sue for peace. Indeed, between your proposal and the results of your most extraordinary mission, it is probable that you will be promoted in the near future. A mind like yours would be wasted commanding only a small squad like your own. Ladies and gentlemen, I declare this committee of inquiry closed, as the aims for which it was created have been fulfilled, with the exception of our individual reports, which I expect to have in my office in the next two days, so I can write our group opinion. This meeting is adjourned."

As the officers filed out, Janet and Lynn burst in. "Scott!" Janet panted, "We have to hurry to the Med Center. Kayra went into labor an hour ago, and she isn't doing too good!"

"Lynn, tell Todd to report to the Sterlings for a temporary assignment, and to inform the commanders of Kayra's condition. After all, Kayra and Miriya are like sisters to each other. You can either stay with Todd and his temporary gig, or you can join us in the med center; I'll leave it up to you to decide."

"I'll join you guys as soon as I can. I've got a feeling it'll be a long night, and you'll need some support."

The delivery took six hours; and when it was over, mother, father and daughter were all admitted to the hospital. Shannon had fainted after seeing the size of his daughter, and had nearly scalped himself on a piece of medical equipment when he fell. Of course, when the rest of the family saw the baby, they didn't blame him. She was named Karen Noel, as she was born at 0012 on Christmas morning. She weighed 7.4 kilos, more than twice the weight of a normal newborn. The differences between her and a normal baby didn't stop there. She was born with all of her baby teeth, as well as a full head of shoulder-length green hair. Her eyes were open from birth, a piercing green that shone like emeralds as she seemed to watch everything that happened around her. Jean quickly ran a battery of tests on her, and the results came back as normal - for a six to twelve month-old, that is. Some results were more compatible with an even older child. Needless to say, Dr. Lang was notified immediately of these developments.

As for the doting aunt, uncle and first cousins(once removed), they moved temporarily into the Skull Squadron barracks while their new quarters were being set up for them in a yet-to-be-disclosed location. For that matter, Scott and Max had to return to the Factory Satellite to report to Hunter and Hayes on Kayra and Noel, and to retrieve Highlander's personal gear from storage. So much for the holidays.

**Chapter Three:**

"The child Noel changes my plans drastically. She seems to have more potential than Dana, yet she seems to be less important to the Shaping of things. Dana is still the focus, the One; Noel will be the guinea pig." - Lazlo Zand, private notes

"Congratulations, Scott, or should I say Skull Three?" Max said, patting Scott on the back. Scott had just been promoted to Lieutenant Commander by Admiral Hunter himself, and now the three were getting ready to have a late lunch. The Ten-Forward Lounge was fairly quiet, being in the lull between lunch and dinner. The restaurant itself was named over two years ago by some Star Trek fan who was awed by the lounge's view, and the name had stuck. Scott could understand why, as he watched a shuttle leave the nearby main shuttle bay; the name's origin did seem to fit the setting.

"Thanks, Max; all I really needed was more responsibility to shoulder. Admiral, what's to become of the mecha I brought back from the other universe? Surely Dr. Lang's showed an interest in them."

"Dr. Lang and I discussed them in length, Scott, and he decided to let you and Max take the Legios down to Brasilia for safekeeping, while he keeps those battle bikes for study."

"Why doesn't he want those Veritechs, Rick?" Max asked.

"Because he's learned as much as he can about them without taking them apart. What good would they be in pieces if he doesn't know how to put them back together when he's through. At least with the Cyclones, he'll have complete cycles to study as well as some extras to dissect."

"I see. Besides, as unique mecha, they would make great secret weapons, and Scott's group are the only ones who have flown them before. It wouldn't make sense to separate the mecha from the only pilots who can use them."

"Wait till you see the operator's manuals, Max. I doubt even Scott knows all of what the Legios is capable of. Each component has the standard three modes, and they have Jet and Guardian modes combined as well. There is even a ninth configuration where the Beta stays in Jet mode while the Alpha goes Battloid still attached to the Beta. They can even fly in Battloid, not just hover like the Valkyries."

"You keep singing the praises of the Legios, Admiral. You wouldn't have happened to take it out for a spin in the last two weeks, by any chance?"

"You better believe it, Scott. When Emil gets our own production lines of these babies going in a few years, I plan on taking delivery of the first one."

"By the way, Admiral; Max has been keeping me in the dark about where my squad is going to live. After all, Noel is classified Top Secret. But no one's told us how we're supposed to keep her that way."

"You'll be living at the bottom of the old Cannon barrel, by Max and Miriya. Where else would be safer?"

"How can a combat team operate out of an eight-kilometer hole in the ground?"

"Max, YOU explain it to him; after all, it was your idea."

"Actually, Scott, we'll have better access to our mecha this way. Our VTs will be parked in the cannon barrel itself, and it'll only take us about two minutes to scramble by taking off in Guardian, then going to Jet and full throttle till we clear the hole. Besides, your group won't see combat much in the next six months, as Shannon and Kayra are on parental leave and you'll be waiting for some academy grads to strengthen the squad. Maria's techs will be functioning as a special security and investigations team for our Southlands bases, similar to the ones Lang's already set up in Monument, New Tokyo and Little Luna. Kayra will need Shannon at home for a while; I can vouch for that myself. It's hard having to teach a Zentraedi about parenthood. The rest of Highlander will be part of Skull's patrol rotation, and you'll sub for Mir and me when we have other duties to perform, or we're off base for some reason."

"But where is there to live down there?"

"The lowest level was to have been quarters for the UEDC bigwigs that would have run the Cannon complex. When we founded the current base, we restarted and finished the construction down there, and retasked the weapon chambers for additional quarters, hangars and storage. Your apartment's between mine and the Grants, and Shannon and Kayra will be right across the hall, so they'll have easy access to us for moral and medical support."

"Attention Rear Admiral Hunter;" a familiar voice called over the intercom of the lounge. "Your superior officer requests your presence in her quarters immediately."

"Oh well; duty calls. Call me the next time you two are aboard, Max."

" Duty my you-know-what," Scott snickered. "Have fun with the Admiral, Admiral."

"I sure hope to." Rick walked out of the lounge, humming something to himself.

"Well, Scott, what are we going to do know? I just missed my return flight back Earthside, although I'm pretty sure your gear can make it down by itself okay. You wouldn't mind it if I hitched a ride with you in the Legios, by any chance?"

"Why not? I know you're dying to try it out."

"I'll race you to it; the winner gets the Alpha."

"Are you sure? You've heard how fast I used to be in school."

"I don't care. Besides, I haven't had too much fun lately. I can't wait to see the faces of the crew as they see two officers running down the halls."

"If you put it that way... on your mark, get set, GO!" they took off running down the hall, whooping and hollering like two recruits on first leave.

**Chapter Four:**

"Karen Noel's growth and maturation is unprecedented. Today, 4 March 2017, she is only nine weeks old, yet physically she appears for all practical purposes to be approximately 36 months of age. Her motor skills and aptitude also reflect her size, except for one thing: she has yet to attempt speech, or even cry. Dana seems to be able to communicate in simple terms with her, often vocalizing Noel's desires with great accuracy. It's possible that they may share some form of empathic bond, Dana sensing Noel's needs. I can't help but wonder who's playing this cosmic joke on us. Noel seems like something taken from an old science fiction story, Like Alia from Dune, or Elizabeth from V. It almost seems to be life imitating art once more. It's the last thing we need."

- Jean Grant, report on Karen Noel Freeman to Admirals Hunter and Hayes, 3/4/17

Noel bounded across the room, playing with her toys, a pair of miniature Veritechs. Kayra was watching her daughter while talking with Miriya and Jean in one of their weekly support sessions. Kayra hadn't had any time to prepare for motherhood, and it took all the help her friends could give her to handle the far from normal child she had borne.

"Jean, Miriya; did either of you go through this? It sometimes seems she's as smart as I am."

"We did, but nowhere near as quickly as you have had to," Jean said, as Miriya nodded in agreement. "Noel started walking at ten days; most children don't even attempt walking until they're ten months, and even then they can barely stand. I don't think I've ever seen Noel fall, not once. Normal children her age aren't even capable of crawling."

"Another thing, Jean, is that Noel's never cried; at least, not since she was born. And we were able to potty train her not long after she started walking."

"It's strange, I know. She's the size of a three-year-old, and eating like one too. I can't explain it anymore than you can. Those tests I keep running on her keep coming back with her being more and more mature. She seems to understand everything we tell her; it sometimes seems that she can read my mind."

"Come on, Jean," Miriya replied. "That's going too far. All children do things like that. Besides, if she really is as intelligent as you say, she's probably got your testing routine memorized by now."

"You're right, Mir; I am sounding paranoid, aren't I? Mind-reading, hmph! The next thing you know, we'll be thinking our children have powers far beyond those of mortal men and women."

"Yeah, and Bowie's banging on that old piano of yours will make him a bigger hit than Minmei."

They all got a good laugh, and changed the subject, not noticing that Noel had stopped playing and had been listening to the entire conversation.

Over the next few weeks, Noel continued to grow at an astounding rate. By the end of March, she was the size of a normal four-year-old, about three inches shorter than Dana. Noel spent most of her time either with Dana or playing around with her father's computer games. Evidently, she must have thought the communications software was a game as well, as Shannon soon found numerous satellite links to the Factory Satellite, New Tokyo and Monument on his phone bill. He eventually had to cut off her access to the computer to save money, as the parental control software kept failing to initialize properly.

On 27 March, there was a attempted kidnapping of the two girls, although it was likely they were only after Dana(Noel's existence wasn't common knowledge). Somehow, two gunmen managed to get into the restricted access personnel area on the lowest level, and incapacitated the two guards that were assigned to watch the girls when the parents were busy. At the time, the men were out on patrol, and Miriya and Kayra had gone shopping. The mothers returned to find the guards unconscious, and the two would-be kidnappers catatonic and tied up with the girls jump-ropes. Their weapons had blown up in their hands, and had nearly taken the hands with them. It was 10 April by the time the kidnappers regained enough coherence to be questioned by the authorities. Even then, they didn't know what had happened to them, although they admitted readily what their intentions had been when they had entered the girls room. However, the interrogators noticed strange things during the questioning. If anyone wore green in their presence, they would become nervous. If shown a picture of the two girls, they became agitated to the point that they had to be restrained to keep them from running in panic. And, when the girls were finally brought in to identify the men, both of the latter lapsed back into catatonia for three days. Things were really getting strange.

In April, Noel's growth rate seemed to slow to an almost "normal" rate, at least for her size. She now appeared to be about 4½. She seemed to stay that way into May, and she and Dana were almost inseparable, one usually staying the night with the other. Dana remained the only person who seemed to be able to communicate two ways with Noel, who still hadn't attempted to speak, at least in an adult's presence. The closest Noel had ever come to speech was an occasional giggle at one of Dana's jokes. That was before Dana's birthday party, however.

The party was more along the lines of two parties; one for Dana, and her young friends who were the children of base personnel, and the other for the adults, who had been desperate for a distraction from the normal routine of the base. Most of the off-duty inhabitants of the base's level turned out, as did nearly all of Skull Squadron that was off-duty as well. Rico, Bron and Konda had stopped by as well, on their way to Monument, but weren't having too great a time of it. Parties tended to remind them of their time in New Macross, and of the women they had loved there, who had died aboard the SDF-1. After a bit of discussion, Miriya and Kayra convinced them to put in for transfer to Brasilia, to take care of the girls for them. Of course, it would take until at least September to get through all the red tape, but it was something they looked forward to. Things seemed to be going well, until about an hour after Dana had opened her presents.

"Kayra, have you seen Dana?" Miriya had been seeing that her guests and their children were getting together as they left, but couldn't find her daughter in the chaos of the party's end.

"No; have you seen Noel? Bowie said he saw the girls go into Dana's room to put up the money she had gotten for her birthday, but the room was empty when he went in a few minutes later."

Kayra suddenly realized that both girls were missing. She and Miriya looked at each other, then screaming the way only mothers in full panic can. Needless to say, what was left of the adults party stopped cold. An immediate search of the base ensued, but there was no trace of the girls to be found, and no way for them to have been taken off-base. The only thing wrong with Dana's room was that her piggy bank was missing. The base was rechecked top-to-bottom two more times, but to no avail, and the search was called off. Neither the Freemans nor the Sterlings were able to get much sleep that night.

The next morning, Max got up at his usual time, to get ready to search all over again. As he was starting to make a quick breakfast, he heard noises coming down the hall, from Dana's room. He tiptoed into the den, and grabbed one of the knives from the wall above the mantle, the ones he and Miriya had dueled with on their "first date". Stealthily, he slipped down the hall, and eased the door open. There, on the bed, were Dana and Noel, wearing festive Mexican clothing and singing "La Cucharacha" very badly.

Miriya stepped out of the master bedroom, her insomnia showing in her eyes. She had heard Max in the kitchen. but not the noises from Dana's room."Max, do you want your coffee black?" she asked down the hall to her husband's back.

"Actually, I think I could use a drink right now."

"Huh?"

"Call Scott and Shannon; the girls are back. I don't know how, but they're back!"

Ten minutes later, a confused group of parents and relatives were cross-examining Dana. All Dana would say was that the party had gotten boring, so they had gone shopping. The clothes still had their tags on them, and the adults were shocked to discover that the clothes were from a store in Mexico City that catered to tourists, a store Shannon and Kayra had been to way back in early 2016, before Highlander was transferred to space duty. Dana wouldn't say anything about how they had gotten the clothes.

"Girls, don't ever, EVER go anywhere again without permission!" Miriya scolded. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, Ma'am!" both girls cried out, going to attention and saluting her.

"What?" Scott suddenly realized something was very strange. "Wait a minute. Noel?"

"Yes, Uncle Scott?" she replied crisply.

"When did you start talking?"

"I've been able to talk for a while; I just never had anything to say before. Let's go, Dana." With that, they turned and went back into Dana's room, and started playing with their dolls, leaving a group of stunned adults to ponder this latest development.

Max finally broke the silence. "Scott, Shannon; I don't know about you two, but all I care about is that they're safe and sound and back home where they belong. All worrying will do in this case is confuse us even more. Frankly, I DON'T WANT to know what happened in the last twelve hours; it gives me the creeps."

"Whatever, Max," Scott replied. "I just hope you know what you're doing."

Meanwhile, Jean Grant, who hadn't arrived in time to be part of the question-and-answer session, returned to her apartment and began looking through Vince's bookshelf of vintage science fiction. Finally, she found what she was looking for; a dog-eared paperback of Dune. "And people thought you and Heinlein wrote strange stories," she said to the photo of Frank Herbert on the back. "Real life's gotten even stranger."

**Chapter Five:**

"The shortest distance between two points depends on your point of view." - Karen Freeman

It was 14 June when disaster struck: the mysterious person or persons who had been trying to engineer the kidnapping of the girls finally succeeded. Their guards were found dead, poisoned by a gas that their body armor couldn't filter out. The girls themselves had been flown out in Janet's VT, stolen from its place in the cannon barrel's hangar. A week went by, but no demands came in. Rumors circulated in the Argentinian black market, saying that the kidnappers had lost the children somehow, and that one of the kidnappers had died a gruesome death in the process. On the 25th, an informant came forward, confirming the rumors and describing the death of one of the kidnappers (he had attempted to molest one of the girls, but for some unknown reason, exploded!). After his disgusted co-conspirators heard the explosion, they entered the room to find the girls missing and the pervert splattered all over the walls, floor and ceiling.

But, before he could continue any further, the informant fell over, dead with no apparent cause.

Then, just as mysteriously as it started, it was over. On 3 July, the girls suddenly turned up aboard the Korra'ti. Witnesses said that a young woman, appearing to be in her late teens to early twenties, brought the girls onto the bridge by way of the human-sized door, then turned and walked out. Security was immediately alerted, and the ship sealed, but no trace of the woman was found. As the crew were all normal Zentraedi, they weren't able to get a decent look at her in the short time she was on the bridge, but they were sure of one of her features - her waist-length green hair.

Max and Scott flew a shuttle up to retrieve the children that day, and they had no trouble getting them to leave "Uncle Dar's" ship. A change had come over Noel while she was away. She now acted and spoke like a normal girl of her apparent physical age. It was a sudden change from the old Noel, but it was a welcome relief to her parents. Dana, however, was undaunted by her and Noel's latest "misadventure", but you couldn't tell if Max and Miriya cared. In fact, they almost wished the irrepressible Dana Sterling had come back as subdued as Noel.

Scott wasn't about to take this mystery lying down, however. He was determined to discover the identity of the woman seen aboard the Korra'ti, and find out how she managed her appearing and disappearing trick. The place to start looking for clues was with Dana and Noel. Any information they could remember would further the investigation.

"Noel, what do you remember about the bad men who took you away?" Scott had gotten Jean to place the girls under hypnosis, on the chance it would improve their answers. Currently, Noel was under while Dana waited with Miriya in the waiting room.

"They took us to a place that the sky was dark, even in the day. I got sick on the way, cos I was floating in the plane. When we got to their house, they made us stay in one room all the time. One of the bad men tried to hurt me, then... then he blew up... The pretty lady came and took us home with her. We stayed there with her and her friend til they told us we had to go home."

"What can you tell me about the pretty lady and her friend?"

"They were really nice to me and Dana."

"They were? Can you tell me their names, or what they looked like?"

"They were both real pretty, but Kara was the prettiest."

"Kara?"

"She had hair like mine, only longer. Her eyes were green, too. She sang to me."

"What about the other lady? What can you remember about her?"

"I-I think her name was Miri. She didn't play with me much, she was Dana's friend. She had yellow hair and blue eyes, maybe...maybe green. Uncle Scott, can I go now?"

The request stunned Scott and Jean, who had been certain that Noel was hypnotized. "Sure, honey; you go on home. As you go out, tell Dana to come in."

"Okay."

About a minute after Noel left, Dana and Miriya came in. They hypnotized Dana and asked her the same things they had asked Noel, modified by Noel's answers. Dana s description of the kidnapping matched Noel's almost exactly, and included a remark about how "icky" the room was after the kidnapper went "boom". Scott then turned his attention to the girls "rescuers".

"Dana, what can you tell me about the girls you lived with? Start with Kara."

"Kara was real nice, 'cept for the time she poked me in the belly with a big needle. After that, she mostly played with Noel. That was when Miri started taking care of me."

"What can you remember about Miri?"

"She called me her little sister, and told me bedtime stories about Mommy and Daddy and Uncle Rick and Aunt Lisa. But the ones I liked best was the ones about Prince Zor and Lady Regis and how the Tirons hurt them."

Scott felt a cold shiver go up his spine. "Jean, I think we've heard enough for today. Miriya, did she just say what I thought she said?"

"About Zor and the Invid Regis?" Miriya wasn't sure whether she had heard it either.

"Yes. Christ, Miriya! Who are these women who seem so godlike to their eyes, that tell fairy tales about Zor? This is getting creepy beyond belief!"

"You're telling me? Scott, I think we better bring Dr. Lang and Exedore in on this. I've got a feeling something's very different about these two women."

"Good idea. Let's try to set up a meeting with them as soon as possible. We need all the help we can get."

The talks with Lang and Exedore led to further hypnosis sessions with the girls. Soon, they were able to isolate the two areas that the girls had been as both being in space. They had no luck figuring out where the kidnappers had their hideout, but it was on the Factory Satellite that the women had lived, somewhere on the side of the structure that faced toward Earth. After a hectic re-arrangement of flight schedules, Scott was given a week's leave to explore what he could of Little Luna. The satellite was huge, and it required searching thousands of rooms, most sized for Zentraedi, and some which hadn't been entered since before it was captured in 2013. The week was nearly over when he got lucky; he had found the place where the girls had been kept by their rescuers. Further questioning of the girls by Jean and Miriya and determined that the kidnappers had lived somewhere else in orbit, so his searching was through.

The chamber was almost Spartan in decoration, with only a few crayon drawings by Dana and Noel to brighten up the walls. The wall toward the exterior of the Satellite featured a huge window, offering a fantastic view of Earth. The furnishings were similarly barren: four RDF sleeping bags, a portable kitchen, a gravity couch from a shuttle and a comphone/computer terminal. Sanitary facilities consisted of a small locker room, toilets, and shower stalls, that had once been used by Tyrolean technicians. In fact, he was within 500 meters of where he had overheard Edwards' plot the year before. From the look of the place, its most recent occupants had been gone about a week; a nine-day-old receipt from Ten-Forward under the kitchen unit confirmed the estimate.

Only one thing stood out, and even then he almost missed it. There was a instant camera photo stuck in the couch, of the two girls and their "guardian angels". Unfortunately, it was horrendously out of focus, and he couldn't tell much about them except their apparent height in relation to the girls. The blonde was about 5 8" to 6 foot, the green-haired one about half a head shorter. He still had no idea about who the two were, but at least the evidence was mounting. Whether they were good Samaritans or kidnappers with a change of heart, the women should at least be able to identify the men involved with the kidnapping. The comphone was still active, so he called the RMP office located in the main section of the Satellite.

"Robotech Military Police, Little Luna Station," a bored-looking corporal responded. "How may I help you, sir?"

"This is Lieutenant Commander Scott Freeman of Skull Squadron, investigating the Sterling case. I've found an unmarked living area with evidence linking it to the case."

"Tell me where it is, sir, and I''ll dispatch a forensics team to your location."

"What do you mean? I'm calling from it. Don't I show up on your scanners?"

"You do, but the phone board shows you in the shuttle lounge of landing bay twelve. Is this some kind of joke, sir? It is a serious offense to place crank calls, sir."

"No, I'm dead serious. Wait a second; I'll activate the emergency beacon I brought along in case I got lost. There; where does it show me as being?"

"The beacon shows you in section Romeo Delta Four. Do want me to send the team to that location?"

"Yes, but send Lang's Special Investigations team. This situation is classified."

"Yes, sir. Your request has been relayed, and they say that they will be at your location within the half-hour."

"Thank you, corporal. Freeman out."

The team arrived promptly twenty-nine minutes later, with enough equipment to give Breetai a hernia. They took fingerprints, shoeprints, hair samples, etc. They even took skin cell samples off of the latrines. After about three hours of intense scrutiny of the area, they returned to their labs, with Scott in tow. It seemed one of Scott's academy classmates was in charge of the labs; Lieutenant William Charles "Chuck" Hounshell IV. Scott waited an hour outside the labs before his friend came out to talk with him.

"What's up, Chuck?" Scott said, making gagging motions and sounds with his head.

Chuck smiled, then went straight-faced. "I can't seem to get any decent evidence, Scott. It's damned strange. All the prints and samples belong to the two abductees, with the exception of the adult shoeprints. these we can't identify, except that they're probably from some kind of homemade moccasin or house shoe. I'm at a loss to explain it; even the most careful people leave more evidence than this."

"Oh, Chuck; I almost forgot about this." Scott handed his friend the photo he'd found. "It was stuck in the couch, and I absent-mindedly stuck it in my pocket during my original search of the place."

"Let's see... It's a bit out of focus, but my boys ought to be able to fix it up a bit so we can identify the subjects. It should take about three to five days; maybe more if Lang has us work on something else first."

"Call me when you get it done."

"Call? If I can, I'll bring it to you. I've been breathing canned air for too long."

On the flight back to Earth in his Veritech, Scott got a call from Janet.

"Scott, we just got three new pilots in; two female, one male. They're on a familiarization flight with Shannon right now. Do you want to shake them up a bit?"

"Have their mecha been fitted with neutralizers?"

"Yeah; all I have to do is call little brother to give him your ETA, and he'll make sure that their weapons won't function."

"Where are they?"

"Sector Two-Niner-Bravo on a course of oh-one-five, speed 300 klicks."

"All right, I'm over the Amazon delta. My intercept time is twelve minutes."

"Roger, brother; the pigeons will be waiting. See you in thirty."

"Later, Jan."

He went in at tree-top level, popping up to 500 meters at a range of five klicks. He fired a salvo of missiles at the diamond formation of VTs, set to detonate at a range of 250 meters from the targets. If things went according to plan, Shannon had already activated their training weapon override devices, temporarily disabling the other VTs weapons systems. If not, he was going to be in big trouble. The rear VT went Guardian, spun around 180 degrees, went back to Jet and ran, calling for backup. The other two rookies dropped to the ground in Battloid. Curious, Scott decided to make a pass over them at 50 meters - high enough to avoid contact; at least, that's what he thought. He was closing on them when he saw that one held the other on its shoulder. The position seemed familiar, but he couldn't place it. As he passed over them, the bottom one THREW the other Battloid at him, clipping his wing, and it took going to Guardian to regain control. Normally, jumping that high wasn't possible, nor were VT thrusters capable of more than hovering a Battoid unless already in flight, but the throw tripled the distance one could jump. After he righted himself and reconfigured back to Jet, he called Shannon directly.

"Shannon, tell your kids to knock it off, and follow me back to Brasilia in standard formation. Highlander Seven, let me guess; you and Eight have read the old X-Men comics."

"How'd you guess, sir?" the pilot on the throwing end of the Fastball Special replied.

"Never mind, we'll discuss it back at base. I want to meet you three."

The five VTs slowly flitted down to the bottom of the old cannon barrel, circling the tube walls while descending. After parking their VTs, the pilots climbed out of their mecha and lined up for inspection.

"Come on, people, we aren't this formal down here," Scott said to them. As long as we're not in the presence of Skull Leader or Skull Two, you can call me Scott. As soon as I'm through with you individually, you can leave. There's no reason for me to waste the first two's time by making them wait for me to talk to the last. Shannon, introduce me to our new pilots. Now, don't act stupid; I know that you read their files already."

"Scott, this is Roger Sessom," Shannon said, introducing the male pilot. "Also known as Highlander Nine. He's a little old for a combat pilot, but he's no slouch."

"Cute turn you pulled there, Roger."

"My Mamma didn't raise any fools, sir. When none of our weapons fired, it didn't take too long to realize it was a no-win situation. So I did what Mamma taught me to do in that type of problem - run like hell."

"Well said, Roger. I probably would have done the same thing myself. You can go now. Shannon, who's next?"

Next was the pilot Scott had talked with earlier. "Scott, this is Jeanne-Marie d'Argent. She was born in Calgary, moved to Macross after the Rain of Death, and was orphaned in the destruction of the latter. She's a superb pilot; in fact, she placed in the top third of her class overall at the academy. She would have finished even higher if she hadn't had some personal problems semester before last."

She removed her helmet, revealing bushy blonde hair and striking blue-green eyes. This was NICE, Scott thought. Maybe I could interest her in a little fraternization.

"Pleased to meet you, sir. I''ve heard so much about you." She seemed to be uncertain in her answer, as if she was trying to suppress something.

"The pleasure is all mine, Jeanne-Marie," Scott replied.

"Please, Scott... If we're going to be informal, call me Marie. It's a lot easier on the tongue."

"Well then, Marie; maybe we can discuss things later."

"Why, Commander; are you asking me out?"

"Well, yes; but I'm not sure when I'll be free. I''ll call you as soon as I'm done in the command center."

"I'll be waiting." She winked at him as she left.

Shannon led him down to the last pilot, who still had her helmet on as well. "Lastly, we have Karen Ellison. She was born in Toronto, but was relocated to Edmonton as a result of the SDF-1's shield overload. She's supposedly the best pilot to come out of the academy since Kayra, and she did it mostly through the ROTC program. When she reported to the academy for her qualification runs, her testers were so impressed they managed to get her transferred to RDF regular duty. She's only got twenty hours flight time in real VTs, but she flies like she was born to it. She impressed me, if that's any indication."

"Really? Then you must really be good. I'm glad to have you join my group, Kar-" Scott cut himself off abruptly, as Karen removed her helmet, and her waist-length green hair cascaded down her back and over her shoulders. She seemed to look through him with her huge green eyes.

"Oooh, boy," Scott said to himself. He wasn't quite prepared for THIS.

**Chapter Six:**

"I know I'll have to tell him, one day; but it might drive him away. This is so complicated. If Scott knew the truth about Karen and me, there's no telling how he might react. I've grown to love him so much; but how can I keep living this lie, and what if he finds out without me telling him?"

- From the diary of Jeanne-Marie d'Argent

Scott just stood there for a while, his mouth gaping. This girl, Karen, was easily the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, as well as being a dead ringer for one of the two mystery women from the Factory Satellite. Come to think of it, Marie pretty well matched the description of the other suspect.

"What ya doin', Scott?" Shannon asked jokingly. "Auditioning to be a flycatcher?"

"Huh? Sorry; she caught me off-guard a bit. You're dismissed, private."

"I know what you mean, Scott," Shannon replied as Karen walked off. "If I wasn't married to a wonderful girl like Kayra, I'd be down on my hands and knees right now, whining like a puppy at her feet."

"Keep it that way. I don't think a relationship with her would be healthy for either of us. Maria's pretty possessive of me, even though we're splits, and hell hath no fury like a two-timed Quadrono, so I wouldn't try anything if I were you. I've got to go type up some reports in my office, so don't let anyone disturb me that doesn't outrank me. I also want to see their files myself. You did leave them on my desk?"

"Yes; I'm not that stupid."

"Good; the last thing we need are some surprises like that guy from Diamondback who had latent agoraphobia that only surfaced under stress, such as combat."

"Don't remind me. I had to talk him down, and it was a royal pain. Can we expect you for dinner?"

"Yeah; get ahold of Marie and invite her over. I'll call from the office when I have everything organized to the point that I'll know when I'll be done."

"See you then." Shannon went through the security door to the residential area, while Scott took the 100 meter elevator ride to the command level. He went to his office and typed up his reports on the investigation, then sent one copy by satellite feed to the Admirals, while printing out a second copy to put on Max's desk. He studied the two girls' files, while waiting for dinner to be cooked over at Shannon's, as he had overestimated by an hour how long he would be. The files seemed to be in order, but something bugged him about them. All of the places listed concerning their childhood had been destroyed in the last six years, which meant that their original birth records no longer existed either, nor did any other records prior to 2014. It was really strange.

Two weeks went by, and the relationship between Scott and Marie blossomed, despite his initial reservations concerning her and Karen's similarity to the women in the photo he had found. Chuck still hadn't called back or shown up, and that was worrying Scott enough that he finally called up to the Satellite.

"Chuck, this is Scott. I thought you were coming down?"

"Things got busy up here right after you left. Lang had us shut down for ten days while his pilots were up here testing the VAF-3 prototypes."

"How did the tests go?"

"Bad to awful. Three pilots were killed."

"I could have told him that they wouldn't pan out. The Alpha I have is a six."

"There was always hoping. After all, some of the improvements over the twos were due to our findings when we studied your toy up here in December."

"But what's to say that the same improvements weren't made at this stage as well in the other timeline, without benefit of a working model to study? Back to the reason I called; is the work on the photo finished yet?"

"We should be done by tomorrow night, but we can already make out facial features."

"Listen; I''m going to transmit a couple of photos up to you right - now. Got them?"

"Yeah. What are they, suspects?"

"I hope not, but check them against what you've done already."

"Scott, old pal; I haven't even seen the computer comparison yet, but I'll tell you this much. If these chicks ain't the ones in the photo with the kids, then these are their twin sisters! Hold on a second, the computer's through with the comparison. It says that there's a 73% probability that they match, which should go up as the first picture is cleared up. By the way, where did you get these? They look like RDF ID photos."

"They are. Don't ask any more questions; I'm working in shady legal ground."

"Gotcha. One other thing; our analysis of the original photo seems to indicate that green is the natural hair color of the shorter one. It makes you wonder where she came from before this deal. Green ain't exactly a Terran hair color, you know; in fact, it's rare in Zentraedi."

"Interesting; thanks for the help. Call me back as soon as the comparison hits the high nineties."

"Sure thing. Don't forget, you owe me one."

"Sure. Freeman out." Scott let what he had heard sink in. So, Karen's most likely a Zentraedi, and saying most likely is giving her the benefit of the doubt. But how to confirm it without violating her rights as a member of the RDF? He knew there was no way to force her to give blood samples or cell samples, or anything else that would confirm his suspicions, at least until the photo comparison hit 95%. Even then, it might take weeks for the paperwork to clear; even Rick couldn't help him there. However, there were other alternatives. He punched a now-familiar number into the vidphone.

"Sterling residence, Miriya speaking. Oh, hello Scott. Do you need to talk to Max?"

"No, actually I need your help. It has to do with the kidnapping investigation."

"What can I do?"

"I think that two of my new pilots may have had something to do with the incident. I was wondering if you could show them around the interior of the Quadrono armor in the museum upstairs."

"Why?"

"I was hoping that you would notice if they acted strangely around you, or seemed familiar with the mecha."

"You think they might be Zentraedi? That's highly unlikely. As for Karen and Marie, they've babysat Dana and Noel, and haven't tried a thing."

"I don't think that they were the kidnappers, Miriya, although they could be the two that rescued them from the kidnappers. The reason I think that they may be Zentraedi is that I've got it from a very reliable source that Karen's hair isn't dyed that way, and green isn't exactly a normal hair color for native humans."

"I see your point. Have them meet me at the elevator in an hour. When I'm through with them, I'll call you with the results."

"I owe you one, Miriya."

"If you catch the kidnappers, we'll be even, Scott."

Scott ordered the two suspects to their rendezvous with Miriya, then went back to his investigation of their background. Three hours later, Miriya called back.

"Scott, this is Miriya. I've got some interesting results for you. Marie didn't seem to be interested in the mecha at all. In fact, all she did was stare at me a lot, as if I scared her somehow. Karen, on the other hand, almost looked as if she was giving the mecha a pre-flight inspection; she even corrected a deliberate mistake I made during my presentation. While it's possible that any good pilot might have noticed it, a person would have to be familiar with the equipment to have corrected me like she did. I can t be sure about Marie, but you've convinced me that Karen is Zentraedi."

"Thanks a lot, Miriya; I'll let you know as soon as I find out more. As it is, I have to go out on patrol, and Max's brilliant scheduling has me taking them out on patrol by myself. I'll be on duty in an hour, and if anything comes up during the flight, I'll let you know. Freeman out."

Now back to the other investigating he had been doing. So far, he had talked to a couple dozen of their classmates, and all had given the same story. All remembered Ellison's late transfer into the academy, but the only clear memories they had of Marie were from that point as well, although they all had vague memories of her from before. When he checked their training records, they were all in order - too much in order, in fact. A quick call to Chuck confirmed his suspicions. The computer files had been tampered with; an extremely professional job at that. Chuck knew of only a dozen or so people worldwide with the expertise needed to break into the numerous computer banks that held all the falsified information. But, upon checking, none of them had the motive, time and/or access needed for the entire job.

"Great, another mystery to solve," Scott said to the now-blank screen, then stood and began the trip to the hangar. "Now I know what Russian Roulette feels like." He hoped he would live to survive the patrol, and he was almost as scared of Karen as he was of the Malcontents.

**Chapter Seven:**

"Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it." - George Santayana

The patrol was to be simple; fly west to the Andes, parallel the mountains north to Colombia, then fly back over the Zone to the base, reporting any Malcontent activity along the way. At least, that's what would have happened, if they hadn't been attacked. The attack came without warning. It wasn't until they were parachuting to the ground that they saw the "derelict" Zentraedi scout ship on the ground, hidden by a combination of natural growth and camouflage. All they knew was, suddenly, they were being chased by a cloud of missiles normally used for ship-to-ship combat, not anti-aircraft. There were too many missiles, and their only hope was to eject and pray that the ejection seats were too small to be picked up as targets. All three were clear in time to watch their mecha vaporized by the swarm of missiles. Not only did they not have enough time to radio a mayday, there wasn't enough wreckage left to spot from the air. They would now have to make it to a high point of land, activate their emergency beacons, and hope that their rescuers weren't shot down as well. As it was, the earliest they would be picked up was the next morning, as more than one night rescue had turned out to be a trap. It would be sunset by the time they reached a nearby line of hills. As they approached the hills in the fading light, Scott felt there was something peculiar about them. They were too regular in shape, like pyramids overgrown by ages of jungle.

"Scott, you've got an overactive imagination."

"What did you say, Scott?"

"Sorry, Marie; I was just talking to myself. Let's get up to the ledge on the nearest one, and set up camp. It should be high enough for our purposes. Who's going to take first watch, ladies?"

"What's stopping you, glorious leader?" Karen snapped back jokingly.

"You've got a point. I'll go first, then you two can split the graveyard shift."

"Did you have to say graveyard?" Marie shivered. "I saw Zentraedi footprints going up the side of the hill."

"We'll just have to be careful not to fall into them, won't we?" Scott chuckled.

"Oh, you!" Both girls threw survival ration wrappers at him.

"Arghh! Shot down again!"

After a good laugh, they hiked up to the ledge, and set up camp. Scott took first watch; after an uneventful four hours, he woke up Karen, and tried to get some rest. He couldn't sleep, though. He kept thinking about Karen and Marie. If they were involved with the kidnapping, why hadn't they tried something by now? And if they weren't involved, why had they tried so hard to get assigned to Highlander? Mostly, he thought about Marie. They had been attracted to each other from the start, despite his suspicions concerning her past, and they had been growing closer ever since. She was a passionate woman, even more so than Maria, yet she seemed to still retain a child-like innocence. It was that seeming contradiction and her bubbly personality that he had been attracted to, and he was beginning to think what he felt for her was clouding his judgement. Besides, given her rank and his being her superior, she'd have to transfer to a different element of Skull Air Wing for their relationship to progress past movies and meals.

"SCOTT!"

He sat up quickly, looking for Karen, whose scream he had heard, unless it was all a dream. Marie was getting up as well, so it must have been real. He grabbed his flashlight from the survival kit, and stood.

"Karen, where are you?"

"I'm over here!" Karen shouted back. Strangely, now they could barely hear her.

"Stay where you are! I'm on my way!" He scrambled across the side of the hill as fast as he could.

"Scott, look out for-" Scott tripped over a root , but instead of falling on his face, he found himself tumbling into a deep hole. As he hit the bottom, he lost his flashlight. "-the hole. Do you always leap before you look, Commander?"

"How did you get down here?" he asked, feeling around for his flashlight.

"I heard a noise, and when I came over to investigate, the edge gave way and I fell in. Don't bother looking for your flashlight; I saw it break when it hit."

"Where are we?"

"One of Marie's Zentraedi footprints, I think. The big goon must of stepped on a soft spot in the ground, and it gave way. Where's Marie?"

"Somewhere up there looking for us, I guess. Marie, can you hear me?"

"Where are you? I can barely hear you!"

"We're over here! Just follow my voice, and watch for the-"

"Whoa!" Marie came tumbling down, but at least Scott was ready to catch her. It wasn't pretty, but she made it down in one piece.

"-hole... Great, now we're all trapped down here."

"Sorry." She put her arms around his neck, and kissed him as he set her down. "Where are we?"

"One of your Zentraedi footprints. He must have stepped on a weak cave roof or something," Scott answered as Marie shined her flashlight around the hole.

"I don't think so, Scott. Look at the walls."

Instead of rock, the walls were made of ceramics and metal. The far wall was the same, except it had a sliding door with strange writing above it.

"Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore," Scott muttered.

The girls had nothing to add.

**Chapter Eight:**

"It was on that patrol in August of 2017 that the prehistory of Earth began to emerge from the ashes of the past. It wouldn't be until later that year that I would gain some knowledge of the scope of that discovery, and not until Haydon IV that the knowledge made sense. As I write this, in March of 2035, I hope I can use it well at Reflex Point. Scott had always suspected the basics of our discovery, yet even now he does not comprehend it all." - Karen Freeman, preface to the manuscript of The Plane Truth.

"Well, are we just going to just stand here, or are we going to check out the door?" Karen said, breaking the silence.

"What do you think this is, an D&D game?" Scott snarled. "We're stuck here in a ten-meter hole in the ground, and you want to play Green Sonja! We should be more concerned on how we're going to get out of here!"

"We could try using the ladder built into the wall over there," Karen suggested.

"Huh?"

"I think this used to be a foyer for people came in through that hatch above us. Marie, shine the light a bit over to the right... There. What do those look like, Scott?"

"Decontamination showers, like you'd find in a fallout shelter. My uncle's underground house had them."

"That's what I thought too."

Suddenly, they were blinded by lights coming on. "What did you do, Marie?"

"While you two were discussing interior design, I found a light switch. Now, are we going to check out the door or what?"

Scott started to say "or what", but decided not to. "What do you want to do, shoot the door out?"

"I thought we'd try less destructive means first."

"Such as..."

"Such as trying to hot-wire that keypad by the door."

"Oh." Scott felt like an idiot. Just who were these two? After a couple of hours of work on the ancient keypad, which fell apart in their hands, all they succeeded in doing was getting a secondary blast door to seal the hole they had come through, trapping them underground. Finally, they took a break to think about other strategies.

"Maybe we're going about this all wrong," Karen suggested. "What if the keypad was only for the outer door?"

"If that's so, then how did they open this door?" Marie asked.

"What about that writing above the door, ladies? I've never seen anything like it."

"I have; it looks like High Zentraedi."

"Wait a minute, Karen. I know Zentraedi, at least the basics of the language, and this isn't anything like it."

"You're thinking of the Zentraedi common alphabet. There's another alphabet, based on the Tiresian alphabet. It was in this alphabet that the officers received their orders from the Robotech Masters."

"Well, is it?"

"Let's see... I believe it is; at least, it's very close. It's definitely related to the Tiresian language group, but it's not quite either of them."

"Karen, just who are you?"

"Scott, you'd never believe me if I told you, so shut up and forget you ever asked."

"Karen!"

"Marie, I had to; he was beginning to suspect."

"What were you saying?" Scott asked, shaking his head. "I must have dozed off."

"I think I can read it... They've got to be kidding."

"What is it? What does it say?"

"Tolkien would have loved it; essentially, it says `Speak friend, and enter'."

**Chapter Nine:**

"Their tale begins on a world called Tyr,

Where two Goliaths did each other fear.

In their greed to have it all,

They came to cause their world to fall."

- From Karen Freeman's "Shapings: a Ballad"

"You've got to be kidding," Scott replied. "That's all it takes?"

"I guess so; the only way we'll know for sure is to try it." She faced the door, and shouted a Zentraedi word he had seen in writing before, but never heard used; most of the Zentraedi words translated "friend" actually translated closer to "teammate" or "ally". The door shuddered in response to the command, then slowly slid into the wall. "You were right, Karen; Tolkien would have loved it. Now, if the next writing on the walls starts talking about `rings and the darkness that binds them', I'm getting the hell out of here."

"Real funny, Scott," Marie replied. "Now that we've all proved that we've read The Lord of the Rings, I suggest we see what's on the other side of the doorway."

As the door fully opened, the lights in the hallway beyond came on. Their sources seemed to be some kind of luminescent panel, more similar to a huge LED than a flourescent or incandescent bulb. Doors lined both sides of the hall, and the hall itself ended with what appeared to be a set of elevator doors. The doors to the sides led to closets and storage areas, which were mostly empty. The only things left were rubbish and what appeared to be NBC suits.

It seemed that the former inhabitants had taken everything they had thought useful when they left, as a few plastic inventory sheets in the rubbish indicated. Numerous things were listed on the sheets, some translatable, but most not. Regardless, none of the items were present. Finally, they turned their attention to the elevator. Surprisingly, the elevator was still functional. According to the indicators, they were on the uppermost level, with more storage areas beneath them, followed by residential areas and a command center on the very bottom level. Karen decided to check out the bottom level, as she knew the basics of the language, while Scott and Marie searched the residential areas for a reason why the base had been abandoned.

"Scott, who do you think lived here?"

"I don't know. The only things I can think of would be Micronized Zentraedi, Robotech Masters, or possibly even Zor's exploration teams back before he discovered Optera. But this place seems too old to be from any of them."

"I don't know, either. Let's pick the biggest set of quarters we can find and see if we can find any clues."

"That sounds like a good idea. Let's get started."

An hour passed before they found the largest apartment on the level, and an hour of searching the place produced no clues to the builders identity. However, there were some interesting discoveries made about the quarters themselves. The plumbing still worked, and the clothes drawers featured climate-control and sterilization functions when closed, that allowed extreme long-term storage of items.

"You could keep things for centuries in here. Clothes would never mold or dry-rot, and you could even kill the bacteria that make your boots smelly by putting them in there, although it won't help the smell they've already got."

"I get the idea, Scott. Speaking of sanitation, I've got an idea of my own. All these rooms have clothes left behind in them, and this drawer I just opened has towels. I'm going to take a shower. Could you try to find me something my size in one of these apartments while I'm in the shower?"

"Do you want me to put them at the foot of the door?"

"No, just leave them on the mattress."

"Do you want me to leave, then?"

"Why? I'm not ashamed of my body." With that, she started to peel off her muddy uniform, leaving Scott speechless, although he had undressed her in his mind on numerous occasions. He tried to avert his eyes, out of courtesy. "Scott, for somebody who used to be a ladies man, you can be such a prude."

"It's the way I was raised. Excuse me, I'll go find you some clothes now."

"Whatever."

Scott returned as Marie stepped out of the restroom, with the only towel she had on around her hair. After she got dressed, she volunteered to find Scott some clean clothes as well. He was still in the shower when she returned.

"Scott, did anybody ever tell you that you have a cute butt?" Marie called from where she had brought the clothes back, and was leaving them on the sink.

"Marie, just leave the clothes on the counter and get out. We'll discuss my cute butt when I get dried off."

When he had gotten dried off and dressed, he went back into the bedroom, to find that she had made up the bed, and had fallen asleep on it while waiting for him. He climbed into bed as well, and kissed her gently on the cheek. He put his arm around her, and quickly fell asleep as well.

Scott was awakened by the running shower, and shook the cobwebs from his mind. He looked to his side, where Marie was still sleeping, snuggled up to his side. He rolled her onto her back, and kissed her, on the lips this time.

"Wake up, Sleeping Beauty."

"Whaaa..." she moaned, rubbing her eyes.

"Get up; I figure we've had enough rest now. It's - Oh, God, it's fifteen hundred! We've slept into the afternoon!"

"And what a cute couple you two make," Karen said, stepping out of the bathroom in some more of the ancient clothes.

"Why didn't you wake us up, Karen? We may have missed our rescue."

"Don't worry about that. Our rescuers have their hands full fighting the Malcontents at the moment. I slept downstairs last night, and was woken up by the sensor alarms when the battle began outside, and came up looking for you. You aren't going to believe what I found down there. Get those clothes squared and move it! You two are beginning to remind me of Mo- uh, Shannon and Kayra."

"Yes, ma'am, Admiral Ellison," Scott sneered. "But I'll forget your insubordination for now. You've got me curious about what you found downstairs." When they reached the lowest level, Scott experienced major deja vu. Visions of the Moonbase Command, Houston Control, and Canaveral went through his mind, along with memories of another facility in the Northlands, now a Zentraedi retirement community.

"NORAD," he said to himself.

"Not quite, but you're close," Karen replied. "This is a missile and space vehicle tracking facility, but it predates Cheyenne Mountain by quite some time."

"How much time?"

"Does this give you an idea?" She went to a nearby console, and typed in some commands. The projection screens on the far wall lit up, showing an eerily different Earth. The Bahamas were one landmass, and the British Isles were still part of mainland Europe. The Mediterranean was much smaller, and the Aegean but a river valley. The island groups of the Atlantic were now each one or two large islands, and many islands shown that are now only seamounts. For that matter, many of the seacoasts extended fifty, one hundred or even more kilometers past the current ones, or their pre-Zentraedi positions, for that matter. Then there were the white-painted areas that he couldn't figure out.

"What's the white stuff on the screen?"

"Where?"

"On North America, Europe and Asia."

"Oh; those are ice sheets."

"Ice sheets? You've got to be kidding! Ice sheets like those haven't existed for-" IT suddenly hit him.

"Twelve thousand years;" Karen finished for him. "I know. But you ain't seen nothin' yet, as they used to say in those corny old movies." She typed in more instructions to the computer, then continued. "These images are a compilation of the last recordings taken by the various systems before they were shut down by remote signal. The green dots are friendly cities; the red ones, the enemy. The program runs at ten times real time for the first fifteen or so minutes, then gradually speeds up to 100 times. At that speed, one hour's events are shown in thirty-six seconds. Pay close attention, or you might miss something." The screen to the left showed a closeup of the four-rivered valley that would one day become the Persian Gulf. Various insignia, which Karen identified as representing armor and infantry units, opposed each other there. Suddenly, a white streak arced from one of the red cities into the battlefield, turning into an orange circle, obliterating most of the units from both sides. More streaks appeared, moving toward the green cities located in the now-underwater areas of the Bahamas, Azores and Canaries. Streaks arose from the targeted areas, trying to intercept the incoming missiles. Some succeeded, but there were far too many incoming warheads. One by one, the green cities disappeared under orange blots, until only three remained: one in the Bahamas, one on the Azores plateau, and the last on the island that was represented only by the St. Paul Rocks until the drop in sea level caused by the "Rain of Death" exposed part of it to the air once more. More streaks arose, this time from the waters of the Indian Ocean, heading for the Indian subcontinent and the red cities there. All but one of the cities of the Indus and Ganges were destroyed, although some were destroyed by grey splotches instead of orange.

"Oh my God!" Scott said hesitantly. "Karen, was that what I think it was?"

"Yes; a full-scale nuclear exchange, between the Aztlan Empire and the Indi Confederacy. Over eighty percent of both nations' populations were killed in the exchange alone." She paused the display.

"You mean, there's more?"

"Unfortunately, yes. Much of the surviving population of the Earth was at tribal level at best. From now on, everything we'll see was recorded on automatic. This base was abandoned, and its inhabitants went to the Bahamas."

"Why? That place was just about nuked off the map! What possible reason would they have to go there?"

"You'll see," Karen said in a cryptic way, and reactivated the playback.

Within a day after the base was abandoned, two streaks rose from the war-ravaged planet; one from the Bahamas, the other from the Ganges Delta area that was now under the Bay of Bengal. Scott didn't have to know the language the telemetry data was in to know what was occurring.

"Space ships! They left Earth; but why are they just sitting in orbit?"

"They were watching the end of the last of their world before leaving it for good." Explosions tore

through the Azores plateau, explained as being fusion reactor overloads and volcanic eruptions. The next

day, the plateau collapsed, then exploded as the inrushing seawater hit the magma core of the volcano.

What wasn't thrown into the atmosphere sank a thousand fathoms straight down. Kilometer-high tsunamis

encircled the world, destroying all the coastal communities that remained. Finally, after two weeks of

observations from orbit, the two ships left on close but different headings, using some kind of superluminal

drive. The program ended, and Karen continued her explanation. "According to the computer, the ejecta of

the Aztlan explosion, combined with one of the orbital facilities reentering and striking the ice field in what

later would be Canada, caused a temporary relapse of the cold temperatures that had all but ended a few

hundred years prior, but when that Nuclear Winter cleared, the warming process that had already begun

was accelerated even faster than was originally forecast. This was because the ejecta from both the impact

and the earlier volcanic mega-eruption were high in carbon dioxide, water vapor and other greenhouse

gasses. What little technology survived the nukes, EMP, tsunamis from the eruption & impact causing

massive iceberg calving, soon wore out or ran out of power, and within a few hundred years, most surviving

traces were under a hundred meters of water. Thus ended the first civilization of mankind, on the planet known

then as Tyr. Had it not been for the arrival of the SDF-1, we probably would have repeated their doom."

"So, this was part of Aztlan, or Atlantis, as the name was remembered by the Greeks and Egyptians," Scott said. "Do you think the ship that left the Bahamas could have held the Robotech Masters' ancestors? The language is similar, their architecture is similar; even their name for the two homeworlds, Tyr and Tyrol, are nearly the same. But then, the presence of a superluminal drive means that the colonization could have happened in either direction. Dr. Lang's gonna love this one."

"Isn't he, though. I know one thing, though; this place must never become common knowledge. It would destroy what world stability is left, with everyone fighting over its secrets. Scott, do you want to hear something really strange?"

"What, Karen?"

"You saw that valley that the two sides were fighting over?"

"Yes, it's called the Persian Gulf today."

"Well, as a bit of background, I found that Aztlan's national symbol was the eagle, and the Indivan's

was the cobra. You may have noticed that in the unit insignias at the start. The name of the valley

translates as The Valley of the Four Rivers, or in their language, E'edon."

"I'd rather not even think about the religious implications, thank you very much."

**Chapter Ten:**

"Karen's become a real pain. I know that, in a way, she's my mother of sorts; but she created me to be her best friend, not her daughter. Why won't she let me develop a real relationship with Scott? It can't be jealousy(I hope! That would be disgusting); it must be that she s afraid that I'll give away our secret. Why would I do something like that? I've come to realize that it would destroy what little chance for happiness I have with Scott. As Dad once said, some things are better left unknown. In some ways, I'm still more mature than she is." - Last Diary entry of Jeanne-Marie d'Argent

While Scott was recovering from that last piece of information, Karen was fiddling around with what she hoped was a radio. The battle outside had finally ended, and she was sure the RDF was the winner. After about ten minutes, she was finally able to contact Brasilia and advise them of their location and a heavily distorted view of their situation. They were picked up an hour later, leaving through a second exit Karen found by scanning the base schematics. While they waited for pickup, Scott and Karen talked about how their discovery had provided needed evidence for some of the Tiresian/Zentraedi origin theories that many had considered outlandish, although he hadn't expected such a major tie to his own culture's origins as well. Not only was there the whole Eden issue, what information on the final conflict that Karen had managed to tease out of the system had the two sides' units and unit commanders having names similar to those in Hindu and Persian mythology - especially the ones that appeared in both religions as demons on one side, creatures of light on the other.

Lang would have his hands full, both with deciphering the equipment there, and seeing just how much of the engineering of the non-Protoculture superluminal drive implied by the recordings was stored as data. When their ride showed up, they canned the talk, in order to keep a tight security lid on it. It never seemed to enter his mind that his co-discoverer and confidant was someone he was trying to charge as an accessory to kidnapping.

Of course, once they arrived back at Brasilia, he remembered the investigation. They would have to go through a routine physical now, as SOP for downed pilots. Scott managed to talk the doctor on duty to call in Jean Grant for the other two's physicals, after talking to Jean and explaining the reasons. It was dirty, underhanded, and in the grey area of legality; but it was the only way to find Karen and Marie's true race without going through a year of paperwork and court battles.

"Well, Jean; how did the genetics tests turn out?"

"Scott, it's damned strange."

"Huh?" It was the first time he'd heard his friend use an expletive without being mad enough to spit bullets. "They came out as inconclusive. Despite Terran humans and Zentraedi being one species, there are certain genetic quirks that differentiate the two subspecies, due to divergent evolution and the modifications made by the Robotech Masters. Because of this, there are certain genetic traits that are exclusive to one race or the other. These two girls have some of each. The only other times I've gotten this type of result before were when we tested Dana and Noel. But these two are too old to he half-Zentraedi!"

A cold chill filled Scott's stomach, a creeping suspicion he had once had, but had dismissed immediately, because it sounded so ludicrous. "Jean, just how similar are they to Dana and Noel?"

"I don't know what you're thinking, but I'll run a comparison... Jesus..."

"Jean, what is it?"

"They're identical! Your new pilots aren't just similar to Dana and Noel, they ARE Dana and Noel! Ignoring the genetics common to all humans, they're still genetically identical, to four decimal points! But how? I can't understand how this could have happened!"

"I think I do. Remember all the fuss going on up on Little Luna while they were missing, from the unauthorized uses of the Protoculture Chamber? The girls were cloned!"

"But who would know how? The machines would have to be reprogrammed somehow as to not make the clones Zentraedi with Zentraedi false memories. Not even Emil has figured out how to do that!"

"Karen probably can; or should I say Karen Noel. She seems to know everything, and what about all those accidental hookups to Dr. Lang's databases as a toddler, databases that not even Rick is cleared for! I'd bet my eyeteeth that she knows more about that equipment than Lang and Zand combined! The way I figure, she started aging again after she and Dana escaped from where they were being held, and she used the cloning chamber to create a copy of herself the way she had appeared before the kidnapping in order to keep Shannon and Kayra from freaking out. How would YOU react if Bowie disappeared, then returned a month later as an adult?"

"I understand, but why didn't the clone come out as a `tabula rasa', or blank slate? Without the Zentraedi false memory programming, the clone would be worse than an infant, and with it, it sure wouldn't have Noel's memories or knowledge of the English language."

"True; but there's something else I've discovered about Karen Noel. We've all seen the results; we've just refused to believe them. She's a psi."

"What are you talking about?"

"She's psionic. From what we've seen and heard, and the results of the two kidnapping attempts, we know she's a telepath, a pyrokinetic, and a teleporter. It's the only way to explain what has happened in the last few months, from her and Dana's shopping trip to Mexico City to how she was able to talk and use a computer at such an early age. She would have educated the clone by telepathy, changing the memory of the escape slightly in both the clone and Dana's minds to include her as an outside rescuer. Noel the clone probably doesn't even know that she's not the original!"

"Scott, you're ranting!" Jean walked over to the vidphone, to call Vince to come down and subdue Scott. "Your ideas are totally nuts, and you're starting to act it!"

"Actually, he's been dead on the mark so far," Karen's voice echoed in their heads, then she teleported into the office between the two. Jean was looking straight at Karen when the latter arrived, and fainted from the shock. Scott was in no position to help her, either. He hit the floor a half-second after she did, for the same reason.

"Well, I guess they took it pretty well," Karen said, picking up Jean. "They could have had heart attacks and died. Marie, you can come in now; the shit's hit the fan."


	3. Book One, Part Three

**Interlude: Pawns**

"So, my former apprentice, you think you have a chance to win."

"I do. Remember, you may have won the first game, but the match is best two of three. I have simply decided to play the last two games simultaneously."

"I see. But how can you help your position in this way? I can always make most of your players forget their experiences in the last universe."

"Then I succeeded in distracting you. The shifts in the universe traveled to were more important, short term, than any foreknowledge that the other one received, that you can easily make the latter forget. We are closer, now. The Korra'ti is pivotal in my plans for the youngest universe, but the data I gave Lang and Burke by sending it to the other has enabled that REF to return to Earth in time to force the Masters to surrender."

"I may have underestimated you. But be warned; you still cannot directly help your clones. And the Regis will still find Earth, due to Rem's dreams."

"But things will be different, this time. The board has been changed. I have captured Rem and his brother, and have Dana, Musica, Shannon, and Kayra to play as well. You will not win again."

"Soon, though, we will be head-to-head once again. There will be no more distractions. We will see, my son, who is to determine the fate of the multiverse."

"DON'T CALL ME YOUR SON! I was heir to your schemes, but the main line's suffering at your hands turned me away from your goals. I may not have been able to stop the second's fall to you, lacking experience, and only delaying your victory, but the fourth is in my grasp, and the third is protected by she I hope one day to be my apprentice."

"But she must live to do so, boy , and your plans are apparent to me as soon as you make them."

"Who says that I'll be making the moves? Karen, and her aide, Marie, have their own free will, and you cannot read them the way you read me. No longer will I play into your hand."

"We shall see, boy. You aren't the only one with agents there."

**Part Three: "Strange Days Indeed"**

**Chapter One:**

"Of course, if our parents had found out the truth back then, it would have destroyed the friendships between the Freemans and Sterlings, if not Skull Squadron itself. It was a double-edged sword, being found out. On one hand, it would be harder to keep our identities secret, not to mention what might have happened if Lazlo Zand had found out(thank God, he never even suspected). On the other hand, our two little sisters gained two additional protectors, we were no longer under constant surveillance and investigation, and I no longer had to use less-than-legal means to get information from Dr. Lang's labs. It helped my situation greatly, but it nearly killed the relationship between Uncle Scott and Marie."

- Karen Freeman, The Plane Truth

When Jean came around, both she and Scott were stretched out on the examination couches, being tended to by Karen and Marie.

"Jean, you had to be one of those backward-falling fainters," Karen said, placing a cold pack on the bump on Jean's head. "You about gave yourself a concussion when you hit the floor. You're supposed to be the doctor, not me."

"Karen? Or is it Noel? I'm confused."

"Call me Karen; Noel is my little sister."

"I knew you were different when I delivered you, but I never thought you'd be THIS different."

"Among other things, I think I have the Garudan atmosphere to thank for that. I think that the organisms of the hin formed some sort of symbiosis with me as an embryo. It would explain some of my powers, as they duplicate those of the Garudan natives. But the really abstract ones, like my teleportation ability and pyrokinesis, I m at a loss to explain, except as a side-effect of where I was conceived."

"Karen, I only have two real questions. How did you know how to do all of those things as a baby, and is Marie the original Dana or a clone?"

"I'll answer the second one first. Marie is the clone; I was getting lonely as an adult, and Dana and Noel were too much for even me to handle by myself. So, I created Marie to be the friend for me as an adult that Dana had been for me as a child. That leaves the first question. I was self-aware long before I was born, and I used my telepathy instinctively when I did become aware. I experienced every thing that Kayra did or felt during the pregnancy; for example, I have vivid memories of the other Dr. Lang examining us aboard the Korra'ti, in orbit above Tyrol. One odd trait I had was that I was absorbing other's memories and knowledge, passively at first."

"At first?"

"Initially, I absorbed most of Kayra's memories and programming, but not long after that started I somehow became aware enough that I wasn't Kayra herself, but in her body, and that led to figuring out I was in the womb. Reaching out for more knowledge, my mind found Shannon's, and later others, such as the people examining me in that other universe, and here. When I had free time, I found myself going through the copied material, and dump most of it. After all, I want to live my own life. Still, I kept a lot of things that I thought would save time later. Piloting techniques from every one from my family to Max, Miriya and Rick Hunter, for example, but such knowledge was useless until I had the ability to develop the reflexes, coordination and muscle memory for them. I could operate on someone right now, using your medical education - I wouldn't be very good it at, but I would know it as well as a med student. All of my fooling around on Dad's computer in February was actually my doing research on how to program a Protoculture Chamber to stop my rapid aging. Unfortunately, I never had a chance to put it to use until after I had aged to this point.

"When I teleported us away from the kidnappers hideout, I could already tell that something strange was happening to me. So, I teleported to a place I knew to be closer than Earth was at the time: the Factory Satellite, in the area where Uncle Scott had overheard Edwards' plot last year. The first thing I did was run to a nearby nutrient dispenser, and gorge myself. If I hadn't, or if the paste hadn't been as nutritionally complete or easy to digest as it is, I would have died, plain and simple. As it was, my body was barely able to process the paste at its boosted speed to allow my growth to continue until it stopped on its own accord, three hours later. When it was over, so was puberty; I was an adult, and not capable of further growth. I wasn't so sure I was through, though, and I was afraid that if I died, I would be leaving Dana to die as well. I made my way as quickly as possible to the Satellite's Protoculture Chamber facility, used my mental powers to bypass the guards and secure my privacy, and made my modifications into the maintenance console from memory; it was as if the machine could read my mind. Once I had cured myself, I realized the need for Noel, and cloned her after making a few more modifications to the program. I then programmed her with all of my non-special childhood memories. Of course, anything that pertained to my more extraordinary side, I edited out."

"You said latent powers. What do you mean by that?"

"If you check Noel's current genetic profile, you'll find it slightly different from my own. Without me to assist them, her powers will only function under stress, when she needs them to survive. They will stay that way until she becomes an adult, and she won't know all of what she has until I actually tell her about them, or someone activates them with a trigger phrase I implanted in her mind, as a subconscious block. I then took Noel and we went back to where I had left Dana. Within a day or two, the two had me to the point of nervous breakdown, and I was beginning to feel the loss of Dana as my friend. So, I created Marie, and implanted Dana's memories into her along with most of my non-personal knowledge as well. The hardest thing for us to do was mature emotionally, but taking care of those two hellions we call our little sisters for two weeks made quite an impact. If anything, we learned that motherhood is as much instinct as experience. After we finally returned the girls to our parents, by way of the Korra'ti, we realized that we couldn't just sit around for the rest of our lives. I teleported us down to Monument, and created false lives for us at the Robotech Academy, using a combination of computer hacking and telepathic implants into our classmates. A little additional work got us assigned to Highlander after graduation."

"But you forgot about the photograph," Scott interjected, sitting up on his table.

"Our only mistake. We never thought anyone would ever find the place, let alone be able to clear up the picture."

"Scott?" Marie said tentatively, putting her hand on his shoulder.

"Yes... Marie," Scott replied icily.

"I-I'm not sure how this affects us. I love you, Scott, and I know you feel the same way for me."

"NO! IT'S WRONG!" He shoved her away, and stormed out of the office, trying to hold back his tears.

"SCOTT!" Marie screamed, and started to run after him. But Karen stopped her with a glance, causing her to collapse to the ground, asleep but her face covered with tears.

"Oh, Jean; what are we going to do about those two?"

"They'll have to work it out between themselves. Scott has a lot on his mind, and Marie being the daughter of his best friends and commanding officers is going to take a lot of time for him to accept. It's hard enough for me to accept you two as what all this data says you are. Imagine how hard it is for him to accept that the woman he has come to love used to the be the five-year-old he was babysitting a few months ago."

"That's not completely true; she's a clone," Karen countered.

"But that's not how Scott sees it. You don't have much experience with normal humans, do you? The human mind isn't as cut and dried as you would think. The one thing predictable about man is that he's unpredictable. He may come around tomorrow, but it may take weeks, months or years, if ever. I just hope for their sake that it's sooner rather than later."

"What have I done?"

"Don't blame yourself; he would have found out eventually. Just stay around him, get him to accept you for what you are. Once he does, he'll be more inclined to accept Marie. He seemed willing to trust you, even when he suspected you as being involved with your own kidnapping, and he was no where near as harsh with you as he was with Marie. Besides, in the Freeman family, family is everything; you should know that from your parents. He still cares for you as his niece, and will take care of you if for that reason alone. He'll still trust you, and it will be as much up to you as it is up to him to get him to face his feelings toward Marie."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Jean. I need some help that you can't provide, though. My powers have been giving me headaches, both figuratively and literally. I can't control my telepathy sometimes; the thoughts of everyone around me overwhelms me, and it hurts like hell to try to think. And I have no control over my precognition at all. All my visions of the future are when I m asleep, and I can't tell my dreams from my visions until right before the thing happens, by which time it might be too late to do anything about it."

"You're right, there; I wouldn't know where to start to help you. But Dr. Lang might. Emil's going to be spending the summer at his Monument City labs, and he might be able to help you. One of the projects he's working on involves those motorcycle mecha your family brought back from the other universe."

"The Cyclones."

"Yes, that's right. He asked Max & Vince to send up four volunteers to learn how to operate them. I'll have Vince volunteer you, Scott, Marie and Roger. That way, you can be studied by Emil and try to get Scott and Marie back on speaking terms, with Roger serving as a smoke screen. After all, wouldn't the best test pilots be the squad leader and his three newest pilots, who are the most open to new ideas?"

"Jean, you've got a devious streak I never noticed before. When would the transfer happen?"

"In the next forty-eight hours. Emil wants to start the training as soon as possible. Vince and Max are supposed to come over to select the foursome tonight. Is that too soon?"

"No, that should be fine; the sooner, the better. How did I ever get into this mess?"

"Maybe it's genetic, on your father's side."

"That's not funny, Jean."

**Chapter Two:**

"Many people have asked me why we weren't able to duplicate the mecha brought back from the alternate timeline until just prior to the SDF-3's departure for Tyrol. The answers are simple, yet are complicated by another matter. The Legios tandem was a unique set of mecha, and couldn't be risked to dissection, as we may not have been able tore construct them after we were through. However, they were good models for the transformation sequences and aerodynamics. The Cyclones, however, were a different story. We disassembled one, but it was beyond our technology of that time to duplicate, or even to put it back together. It took Cabell, Karen and Rem on Tyrol to enlighten me to why we had failed. Cyclone technology in the hands of the Southern Cross would have unbalanced the Second Robotech War, as a VR-038, the lightest type, was a match for a Bioroid, and the Battlers more than a match. This would have disrupted Lazlo Zand's plans for power, as well as Haydon's plans for the universe. Haydon, through his unwitting tool Zand, wouldn't allow it. Lazlo was my greatest failure, and I was blind to his ambitions until it was too late to do anything about him. But then, being partially under Haydon's sway at the time myself, would I have tried had I known?"

- Dr. Emil Lang, interview. Robotech Today, March 2041 issue.

"What do you mean, I'm being transferred?"

"Calm down, Scott, it's only temporary. Vince and Dr. Lang feel that you should be one of the test pilots for those Cyclone bikes you brought back from elsewhen. You'll only be in Monument for four months. Think about it; good food, civilian entertainment, LOW HUMIDITY." Max let that one sink in a while. "You've been up for a real vacation for a while, anyway. This way, you can unwind a little, and still keep your vacation time collecting."

"Yeah, at least I'll be getting away from these new recruits - Max, don't tell me they're going too!"

"All right, I'll get Mir to tell you. Is there a problem? Fraternization can be awkward, You know."

"Uh... you're right, Max." God, if only he knew. Then again, I hope to God he never finds out who Marie is or how close I came to...

"I knew it; you're having trouble with one of the new recruits. Which one?"

"Uh... both." That's definitely true!

"Both of them? Isn't Maria the least bit jealous, or is that the problem?"

"It's something entirely different, that came up during the investigation."

"Speaking of which, when do I get my copy of the report?"

"I'm sorry, Max; I thought you heard. You haven't been cleared to receive a copy. In fact, it's been classified Admirals Eyes Only. I can tell you that Karen and Marie were cleared" sorta "of any involvement in the kidnapping. That's all I'm allowed to tell anyone. Don't bother asking Rick to tell you, either. It's partially for your own good that it's classified."

"Oh well, if that's true, I'm not so sure I want to know anymore. But, back to your girl problems. I'm your commanding officer, Scott. If you can't turn to me for help, who else can you turn to?"

"If you insist, Max. It's about one of the girls. I found out that her past has been faked, Her parents are alive, but they don't know she is alive." Please, God, let him buy this; it's mostly true!

"Why were her records faked?"

"Because her parents are very important people," You can say that again! "and the revelation of her being alive could cause problems, life-threatening ones." Namely, my life! "The situation is best left alone."

"Why is this worrying you so much? Her faked past isn't your responsibility."

"It's because her family wouldn't approve of our relationship, for various reasons."

"Such as?"

"Such as her age. She's actually younger than 18; a LOT younger."

"How much is a lot?"

"Can you say jailbait, boys and girls? I knew you could." Ain't that the truth!

"That doesn't sound so bad. Rick was seeing Minmei when she was only fifteen. Hell, don't tell Lisa I said this, but I did some research about Mars Base Sara. She had her first fiancee die there, supposedly, but the guy she was so in love with was about your age now, and she was fourteen at the time he left Earth. Besides, things aren't as complicated as they used to be. Used to, you had to have a college education to be a pilot; by the end of the Global War, and ever since, trainees can be as young as fifteen, if they can pass an exam showing their education is on the senior level, and they get their diploma after graduation, if some of these boy wonders didn't already have them. But, as for the person in question, how did she get into the Academy? There's still an age limit of seventeen for women."

"Friends in high places with a lot of power" Or powers, actually

"I see. And revealing her real name would get her benefactor in trouble as well."

"Yes, it would. But what's really hard is that I know her parents personally, and I don't think they'd approve of me fooling around with their daughter." I can't believe I'm actually telling him about this! "It would be too much of a strain on our friendship, if they didn't kill me on the spot!"

"Quit exaggerating!"

"Max, I'm not exaggerating. They aren't known for their patience in personal matters. How would you react if you came back from Tyrol in ten years and found Dana involved with say, Rolf?"Please let him react maturely!

"I'd kill him!"

"I rest my case." I'm DEAD!

"I see your point."

You just think you do! "I have to go now, to fix my funeral arrange- I mean, flight plan."

"Scott, listen to me. If the two of you really love each other, don't fight it. If her parents find out, I'm sure Rick, Mir and I can protect you until the heat dies down."

But who's gonna protect me from you? "Thanks, just remember that at my funeral."

"Oops, gotta run too. I have a lunch date with Mir and Dana. Good luck with Marie!"

"How did you know which one I was talking about?"

"I may wear glasses, but I'm not blind, Scott. Besides, I've overheard Karen and Marie talking about you in the cafeteria before. I'll be up in Monument next month to visit friends, so you can tell me about your problems with Karen then. They probably have to do with Todd hitting on her, or something."

"Actually, you're nowhere near on that one, but those problems are classified."

"I should have known."

"See you then, Max." God, did that nightmare just happen, or what? I just hope that Max never notices the resemblance between Marie and Dana, or I'm done for!

Scott sat in the seat next to Karen on the flight to Monument, directly behind Marie. None of them spoke the entire trip. When they arrived they found that Dr. Lang was waiting for them.

"Greetings, Lieutenant Commander Freeman. It is good to see you again."

"I just wish it was under better circumstances, Doctor. I'm going to send d'Argent and Sessom on ahead. Corporal Ellison and I need to talk to you in private."

Dr. Lang looked at Karen, and smiled. "I see. You two stay here with me, but give your baggage to the others. Privates, follow this man to a grey van outside. He'll take you to your quarters." Lang pointed to a thin, black-haired man in a jumpsuit.

"May I help you, Private?" he asked Marie.

"I've got it, Lieutenant..."

"Isle, Lincoln Isle. My friends call me Linc."

"Thank you, Lieutenant Isle, but I don't think it would be proper for an officer to be carrying a private's bags, even if the private is a woman."

"Forget ranks while you're here. In the labs, everyone's treated as equals."

"Thanks, then. Lead on, Linc." The threesome disappeared into the crowd.

"Dr. Lang; back to our discussion."

"Oh yes, involving Karen Noel here. It's obvious that she's going to need a lot of support from you and d'Argent during her tests here. She also has to take part in the Cyclone testing. Do you both understand?"

"Yes, Doctor," Karen replied, wincing as her telepathy started overloading again.

"Good. The first part of training, actually learning how to ride the Cyclones and operate their weapons in motorcycle mode, is set for tomorrow from 0800 to 1500. Karen, I won't be able to examine you until after the mecha shakedown. Be in my private labs at 1530 tomorrow. I want to test the extent of your abilities, and see if we can work out some kind of regimen to help control your problems."

"I'll be there, Doctor."

"Incredible... Karen, how is it possible that you would have these powers?"

"I'm not sure of that myself. From what I've read of your work and your translations of Zor's, some of them are possible through genetic engineering with Protoculture, while others are possessed to an extent by the Garudans due to the hin. Zor's last work did indicate that they were all possible, but no one here has tried to create them, and the Masters had no success at all in using Zor's works for themselves at the time they had left Tyrol, according to the other universe's Cabell."

"Karen, are you sure you don't want to quit Highlander and become my assistant? A mind like yours is wasted in a fighter squadron."

"Maybe so, but I have a feeling I'll be needed more with my family than with you in the labs. I'll still help you on the Expeditionary Mission, however. I can do one thing your `niece' Janice can't do. She can record things for you, but I can actually read minds."

"Indeed. I just hope that it won't be needed on the trip."

**Chapter Three:**

"Protoculture - Real Flower Power" - Graffiti aboard SDF-3 flight deck, attributed to Lt. Lincoln Isle

It was two weeks into the training before the had mastered motorcycle riding well enough to attempt moving combat, using smoke missiles. Karen's health improved dramatically during this time, due to her therapy sessions with Dr. Lang. The same could not be said about Scott and Marie's relationship, however. Scott was always cold toward Marie, referring to her by last name or rank, even though he always addressed Karen and Roger by their first names. Marie was taking it hard, always staying in a depressed mood, especially during training.

Despite her powers, Karen wasn't able to get Scott to come around or pull Marie out of her funk. The only headway Karen had made in the area was that Scott accepted her as part of his family, and he treated her the same as he did Janet. However, he still wasn't as open with Karen as he had been with his sister; but, at least he was accepting her, and that was the first step in getting him to accept Marie's past.

Six weeks into training, Karen was finally to accomplish a full, unassisted transformation into Battloid. With a bit of spoken instruction(as well as a whole lot of hints to the subconscious), she was able to teach the others to transform as well. Finally, two months into the training, they had become fair Cyclone riders, ready for their first run outside the labs.

The trip would be to the ruins of New Macross and back. As it was a training exercise, "combat, joyriding or any other goofing off," as Linc put it, was strictly prohibited. The main reason for this was that Lang's techs still couldn't figure out how to repair the mecha, other than replacing damaged armor with somewhat inferior material. As it would be the first time the Cyclones were used outside of the labs, they were to stay in motorcycle mode as long as possible. Besides putting their mecha through simulated combat under life-like conditions, they were to take samples to see how the site was recovering from the radiation contamination of the final battle of the Robotech War. Dr. Lang didn't believe in free rides.

There were only a couple of events that slowed them down on the way. The Cyclones still attracted a lot of attention as cycles, especially since the riders were in body armor. Scott even got an "offer" for his bike from a middle-aged Hell's Angel, of all people, as they passed through the sleepy town that still attracted riders every summer. It took Scott's drawing a weapon to get the old man to withdraw the "offer".

Motorcycle freaks had been a major part of the Northland's surviving population, since one of the largest motorcycle rallies in the world had been scheduled to start just days after Dolza's arrival, and those cyclists that made it to Sturgis early ended up helping to feed the refugee camp of Rapid City survivors that grew up between the ruins and Sturgis, a camp that grew into Monument City. Sturgis itself became the waypoints on the road between Monument and New Macross, as it was on the first leg of the I-90/US-85/US-212 route between the two unexpected metropolises of the post-Dolza era - at least until Khyron destroyed New Macross almost 30 months later. Now, only military patrols ventured past the once again sleepy dead end town of Belle Fourche. After all, much of US-212 between Belle Fourche and now-abandoned Alzada, Montana used to be a seasonal road, before it became a planetary asset.

The other delay was outside Belle Fourche, when Karen suddenly took off from the road, toward a nearby cliff face. The others followed, to see her go Battloid, hit her boosters, and grab a young boy as the latter lost his grip on the edge of the overhang. She flew him to the ground, where the others were waiting.

"What's your name, honey?" Karen asked the frightened boy, as she transformed back to Cycle mode.

"Alex; Alex Tyler." He had started to calm down, and didn't seem to be intimidated at all by them.

"Where do you live?"

"About a mile down the road, with my godfather. Don't tell him I was playing on the bluff again."

"I can't do that, but I'll let you ride with me back to you house. Deal?"

"Deal." He climbed onto the back of the Cyclone.

"Now. hold on tight around my waist. I don't want you to fall off."

Two minutes later, they pulled into a small ranch. A man of Japanese descent came out onto the porch, a Malcontent micro-rifle in his hands. He lowered the rifle when he saw the boy on the back of Karen's bike.

"Alex, what have you done this time?"

"Excuse me, sir," Scott said, putting down the stand. I'm Lieutenant Commander Scott Freeman of Skull Squadron. We were out on a test run with these new mecha when one of my colleagues spotted your godson falling off a cliff down the road. He must have gotten too close and slipped over the edge."

"Alex, go into the house. I'll talk to you later."

"Yes, Hikaru."

"I'm Hikaru Ichijo, Alex's godfather, as he must have told you. His parents died three years ago; they got in the way of the last of Khyron's Zentraedi, the day Macross was destroyed. I've been raising him by myself ever since. Cute mecha; they transform into power armor, I assume."

"How did you know?"

"I collect pre-Global War Japanese animation, and evidently so does Dr. Lang. There was an anime series with bikes a lot like these; it aired when I was in my late teens, and it's one of the few series I don't have any of. Let's see... I believe it was called Genesis something-or-another. It's been so long, and that's one of the series that was rare even before the Zentraedi showed up."

"You speak pretty good English for an immigrant."

"Although you might have gotten the impression by what I said, I'm not exactly an immigrant. My father was born and raised in California, and my mother in the city of Kyoto. Dad met Mom while in Japan for a training seminar for his job with Honda in the sixties, and they were married in Tokyo. They split their time between their two countries, so I grew up in both. After college, I got a job with Honda's US operations, and was a plant sectional manager when the Global War broke out and the plant was nationalized by the Western States to help with war production. I stayed on through the war and beyond, until I retired in Oh-Eight. Alex's father was one of my subordinates for the last four years I was there, and he was a good friend. It shocked the hell out of me when he asked me to be Alex's godfather."

"Well, we have to move on, Mr. Ichijo, although we'll wave when we pass by on the way back. We're on our way to up Macross to take radiation readings for Dr. Lang. Take good care of the boy. Karen says he's pretty smart."

"Indeed he is. He's only eight, but he can speak fluent Japanese and I've taught him beginning calculus. I'm going to try to get him enrolled in the Gloval Memorial School in the fall. If he makes it, they say he might start college before he's sixteen."

"I'll tell you what," Karen interrupted. "I'm a good friend of Emil Lang, and I'll get him to write up a recommendation for Alex."

"Thank you. If he makes it, it will make his parents dreams for him reality."

Once back on the open (and unused) road, things got real boring real quick. Things got back exciting real quick, when, as they reached the outskirts of Macross, the bridge they were crossing collapsed under their weight.

"Battloid, quick, and hit your thrusters!" Scott bellowed.

"Two steps ahead of you, Fearless Leader," Karen replied.

"Another one of your visions, Karen?"

"Actually, it was my danger sense," Karen replied on a private channel. "Unfortunately, it doesn't warn me of a specific danger until right before it happens, and I don't always know what the danger is."

"Forget I asked. Where does the good doctor want us to start?"

"Switching back to open channel, now. Roger, take your samples from Khyron's mound; that's the far one. Scott, you're supposed to take samples from the city, where each main avenue from Lake Gloval intersects the outer loop. Marie has the SDF-1, and I have the SDF-2. Rendezvous point is the center of the three mounds."

"All right, what are we waiting for? As soon as we're through with this, the sooner we get to shoot each other with smoke missiles. It'll be quite a change from in the lab."

They flew off in different directions, heading for their assigned stations.

Two hours passed, and Scott and Roger arrived at the rendezvous point to find no sign of Karen or Marie. The only thing that they had heard was from Karen, saying that she had finished early and had gone looking for Marie, who wasn't responding to hails. Scott and Roger became increasingly worried when they found Cyclone footprints leading into a hole at the base of the SDF-1 mound, but not coming out. Evidently, both girls had gone in.

"Roger, I'm going in after them. Wait here, and I don't come out within an hour, radio for help."

"Yes, sir."

The tunnel(?) was dark and damp, but, thanks to the optics in his Cyclone, he was able to follow the tracks. After about fifteen minutes, the trails split. He took the one that went into the lower parts of the ship, the port engine room to be specific. After negotiating some very nasty obstructions in the hallway, with tracks appearing between them, but not going through the gaps in them, he found the first of the two missing persons.

"Karen."

"Oh, hi there, Uncle Scott. How did you know it was me?"

"Marie can't teleport around barriers."

"Touche."

"By the way, where is she?"

"I think I know where she went, but I decided to do some exploring on my own before I went looking for her."

"Well?"

"She said something to me about paying her respects to the dead."

"She's in the morgue?"

"No, silly. When the SDF's were destroyed, they salvaged most of the mecha, but left most of the bodies where they lay. This was to speed up the burial of the remains of the ships, and to make the ships themselves the tombs of the fallen. Ironically, although the decision to bury the ships was made to reduce contamination, the SDF-1's interior is less contaminated than the exterior. Some places on board still have power, due to the modular design of the ship."

"Cut the bull, where is she? Is she in any danger?"

"I thought you didn't care for her anymore, Uncle?"

"I don't, but she's under my command, so it's my job to be worried about her."

"Sure it is. She was going to the bridge, to pay respects to Admiral Gloval and the bridge crew."

"Why?"

"Remember Rico, Bron, and Konda? Those three women who died on the bridge with Gloval and Claudia Grant were the most important things in their lives. When the women died, Dana became, in a way, the child they would never have. Besides, there has really never been a proper service for them. That was one of the things Marie wanted to correct."

"Then you knew she was coming in here."

"Yes, and I knew I couldn't stop her, either."

"Let's go get her, then, and hope she hasn't gotten hurt along the way. The ship seems to be disintegrating in some places."

"I wonder if Roger's called for help yet. I've been in here almost three hours, and there's still no sign of a rescue group."

"He probably thinks we can handle ourselves in here."

"Is this the bridge?"

"Through that door; watch your-" THUD! "head. The doorway's low." Karen started giggling slightly.

"That wasn't funny, Karen. Marie, are you in here?"

"I'm over here, Scott. Is Karen with you?"

"Yes. What are you doing?"

"Resting. Coming up here took a lot out of me. I wasn't prepared for what I found, either."

The bridge was a shambles. Equipment was everywhere, and everything was covered with dust. Strangely incongruous with this were several large cylinders with windows, that weren't part of the original bridge equipment.

"What are those?" Scott asked.

"Medical cryonics chambers, from one of the lower holds near the ship's hospital," Marie replied. "When people died during the trip back, and had recoverable remains, they'd get stuck in one of these tubes, and be frozen. The plan was that, once they got back to Earth, they'd be delivered to their next of kin, or otherwise be buried in 'the cool green hills of Earth'. However, those that died on the flight back from the first fold never got buried, except those that requested burial at sea, or that they be cremated and their ashes scattered somewhere. More bodies got added to the morgue up till the landing here, and even then, a few that died in New Macross chose to have their remains frozen, until such time as their chosen burial spot had recovered sufficiently from the bombardment.

"The SDF-2 crew were lucky - most of them survived and got rescued, and their dead hauled off with them. But, their commanders came here, and the conditions aboard ship at the time meant that the skeleton crew that had died here couldn't be taken from the ship. So, the search parties got a bunch of the chambers, which were meant to be transportable, and brought them to wherever they found bodies. After all, like the old battleship _Arizona_, the SDF-1 is still technically on the ship rolls - and her crew is still at their stations. It looks like they tried to hook them into the power systems, but the lines up here have since gone dead, and their transport batteries run out."

The remains were still recognizable, though. Admiral Gloval's tube lay almost face down, next to the escape pod door through which he had shoved Lisa Hayes. It had been leaned up against the command chair at one time, but the shifting ruined ship had caused it to break free from its straps. Kim, Sammy and Vanessa had been pinned by falling machinery on the crash, and their tubes were not a pretty sight if one looked past the front of their heads and torsos; it had been a rush job, after all. Their faces were reasonably intact, but you could tell someone had wiped blood, dirt and smoke off their faces, as they were laid to rest, and the padding under the bodies were tinged with red. Unlike Gloval, their tubes had been secured to the floor horizontally. Then there was Claudia's tube, mounted at about a fifteen degree angle above horizontal at her old duty station. Her arms had been lad across her chest, one hand holding a half-open locket in her hands. Inside the locket was a faded picture of Roy Fokker in a World Unification Alliance uniform, barely visible through the dust. No one said a word for a while, then Scott broke the silence, trying to remember a quote from a book he had once read.

"It is a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done before. It is a far better rest I go to, than I have ever known."

"Scott, let's go now," Karen said quietly.

"All right." Neither of the girls had to look under his visor to know that there were tears running down his face. Karen and Scott left the bridge, followed a minute later by Marie, who pulled a wreath from one of her Cyclone's luggage-style containers and placed it on the captain's chair.

**Chapter Four:**

"You've got to be kidding!" - T.R. Edwards, comment on the time anomaly after leaving the SDF-1 as part of the first investigating team, 1999

"Roger, we're back!"

"Didn't take you too long to find them, huh?"

"Are you trying to be sarcastic, or what? Why didn't you call for a rescue squad?"

"You told me to wait an hour before calling in. It's only been fifteen minutes."

"I was in there over four hours! Your watch must have stopped."

"Sir, I respectfully point out that if you had been in there four hours, the sun would have set by now. As you can plainly see, the sun is still far from setting."

"Son of a bitch. I guess we know now that the old rumor about a time warp aboard the ship when Lang, Gloval, Fokker and Edwards first explored the ship wasn't just a rumor. But why would it happen again for the first time in eighteen years?"

"Maybe the distortion takes time to build up and is released by living beings."

"Save your theories for Emil, Karen. I was being rhetorical."

The trip back was peaceful, if long, and they reached Monument at 0300. They went straight to bed after decontamination, and were allowed to sleep into the afternoon. After a short debriefing session with Lang at 1600, they had dinner and returned to their apartments.

Scott settled back, grabbing one of the old CDs he'd purchased from one of the artifact stores downtown, as stores that specialized in salvaged pre-war items were called. It was by a band from the 1980s he was partial to, who had supposedly taken their name from the dog in the ancient classic, The Wizard of Oz. Of course, the song currently plying was doing nothing to help his spirits.

"...There were the nights, holding you close;

Someday I'll try to forget them.

As soon as my heart stops breaking,

And tears stop raining;

As soon as forever is through, I'll be over you."

Suddenly, his melancholy was interrupted by its source.

"Scott! Come quick!" Marie was shouting at the door. "Something's happening to Karen!"

He jumped to his feet, and ran across the hall to the girls apartment. He found Karen at the desk, face down and mumbling something.

"Karen, this is Scott." He pulled her upright in the chair. "Can you hear me? What's wrong?"

"Edwards...alive...Mommy, Daddy...NO!" She came alert with a snap, then looked at Scott. "Uncle Scott, something terrible's about to happen to Brasilia Base! You've got to warn them!"

"Calm down, Karen; are you sure?"

"Please, warn them. They haven't got much time!" She was starting to get hysterical .

Scott ran to the vidphone, as Marie tried to calm Karen down.

"Operator, this is Lieutenant Commander Scott Freeman. I need to talk with Commander Max Sterling at Brasilia Base IMMEDIATELY. This is a Code Delta call." About five seconds passed, and Max came on the line.

"Scott, this is Max; where's the fire?"

"Max, I don't have any time to explain. Go to alert, NOW! The base is in danger!"

"I can't call a full-scale alert without a reason, Scott."

"Commander!" a voice came from behind Max. "We have a large free-falling object coming into the atmosphere, on a trajectory that will result in a collision with the base! Impact will be in ten minutes!"

"Thanks for the warning, Scott. I don't know how you knew, but thanks. I'll call you back as soon as I can. Sterling out." As Max's image disappeared off the screen, Marie lost her self control.

"Daddy, no! Scott, what's going on?"

"I don't know, Marie. I just don't know."

"Reports are coming in now from the Zentraedi Control Zone in the Southlands," the MBS anchorman said on the television. "Eye-witnesses with the RDF say that a Zentraedi landing ship, classification Quitra Queleual, fell out of orbit and impacted on the main area of Brasilia Base. It is believed that the ship was forced out of the debris belts at the Earth-Moon Trojan Points by Zentraedi Malcontents, but there is no proof. Indeed, the five largest Malcontent groups, the only ones thought to have the resources needed for a move such as this, have claimed through calls to our news stations that they were not responsible for the event, although they stated that they wish to congratulate the ones who were.

"Casualties are not known at this time, but all the squadrons based there were scrambled as soon as the ship was detected. Unofficial sources say that 10% of the Veritech forces and as much as one-half of the Destroid and Battloid units were destroyed, as well as all base personnel on the upper levels who weren't able to get clear of the base by at least a two-kilometer distance before the impact. There has been speculation that the personnel on the lowest levels, that is, the command level and the command residential level located at the bottom of the unfinished Grand Cannon barrel, may have survived, due to their distance from the surface. But so far, there has not been any evidence for or against this theory. The fates of the base command staff, including Max and Miriya Sterling and their daughter Dana, and Vince Grant, brother of the late Claudia Grant, are unknown, as they were believed to be on the command level at the time of impact."

"So much for the good news," Scott said to himself, turning off the TV by remote, and easing down onto the couch between Karen and Marie. He had tried, for a while, to get hold of Roger; but the other member of their foursome was probably out on one of his drinking binges again, and even if he did hear the news, it would probably make him drink even more. It had been a rough forty-eight hours, and despite their worry, they fell asleep on the couch.

"Scott, wake up! Wake UP!" Scott awoke to find Roger shaking him.

"Huh? What is it, Roger?"

"You've got a telephone call."

"Can't you take it?"

"It's Commander Sterling."

"Max? Why didn't you say so in the first place?" Scott jumped up from the couch and ran to the vidphone monitor. "Max, are you all right?"

"I'm fine; we all are. I just got pulled out about ten minutes ago and I decided to call and tell you that your squad made it out okay. The Legios made it too; that idea of yours to carve garage slips into the walls saved all the VTs down here. However, it's pretty bad down here. The base is essentially gone, and over half of our non-mecha personnel died." He was taking it fairly hard, but keeping a stern face. "I guess we'll be joining you up there for a while until the base is rebuilt. Do you have any idea who did this? After all, you tried to warn me."

"I can tell you one thing; it sure as hell wasn't the Zentraedi. If my intelligence is correct, I was the intended victim, but the persons involved didn't know about the training mission here."

"We'll talk later. I have to go; Rick's calling on another line." The screen went blank.

"Marie, Karen, get up!"

"Uhhh... What is it?"

"You'll be glad to hear that our friends and family are alive and on their way here. Now, Karen, I want you to tell me exactly what you meant by `Edwards'."

**Chapter Five:**

"To this day, I still can't see how Dad missed noticing how much Dana and I resembled each other, especially since I was her babysitter most of the time during the reconstruction of Brasilia Base. I guess he never even considered that HE might be the friend that Scott was afraid of having find out about my parentage." - Marie Sterling Freeman, Skull, Highlander and the Sentinels: Prelude to Light

"Edwards is alive," Karen said, after making sure that Roger had left the room.

"That's impossible! I vaporized that jackass last year!"

"I'm not saying that you didn't. I found out something last week that probably explains his continued existence. Remember the unauthorized uses of the Satellite's Protoculture Chamber earlier this year?"

"Yes, you used it to create little Noel and... Marie." Scott hesitated before saying the last name.

"But there were FIVE unauthorized uses, not just my three. Right before your return from the other timeline, Edwards had taken his yearly physical. Do you know what that means?"

"Cell samples! Those sons of bitches cloned him! But why two uses of the chamber, and how did he regain his memories of the past?"

"Remember, his buddy was in the Special Protoculture Operations division. It's likely they'd done a mind scan of him, as part of a test to see if they could clone him an uninjured body, then use the Zentraedi equipment to program the clone with the scans. What little evidence you brought back concerning the Zentraedi's creators from that other timeline indicate that while most their clones were kept fit with protoculture-based treatments, the rulers actually grew new bodies and transferred their consciousness into them - it was the fact that the highly refined material they needed to continue that was on the SDF-1, and they were stuck just using the maintenance treatments with their commoners, that drove them to leave Tyrol for Earth.

"Also remember that memories somehow appear to transcend cloning to an extent. The other universe's Zentraedi proved it. Despite their minds being totally purged of their memories of being miners on Fantoma, exposure to Fantoma and the remains of their culture there brought those memories back, even for those who were twenty or more generations of clones separated from their forebears that were the actual miners. I brought part of Dana's childhood memories out in Marie using my telepathy to awaken those dormant memories, but it might be something tied to the use of Protoculture in the cloning - there seems to be almost an extra-dimensional sentience behind the stuff, or possibly something on a quantum level that can link two different versions of the same organism across time. After all, look at the role it plays in folding space-time on a macro level.

"As for the two uses of the Protoculture Chamber facility, it could be that they weren't able to clone him as a straight human, and had to micronize him."

"Are you saying that T.R. Edwards, one of the most rabid xenophobes in the Southern Cross, was reincarnated as a Zentraedi?"

"Essentially, yes."

"I bet he's thrilled!"

"Not quite. Now he has a bigger grudge against you than he ever had against the Admirals. He was trying to kill you and our family with that ship, not all those others. As our presence up here was secret, he didn't know that you weren't there."

"Well, I'm on guard for him now. Next time, his death will be permanent."

While Karen and Scott talked the night away, trying to figure out more about her vision, Marie had returned to her and Karen's apartment, and was thinking about the events of the last 24 hours. "Things are looking up now," she said, trying to convince herself; "At least he's calling me Marie again." She reached over to the remote control by the bed, and turned on the television, since several hours had passed since the phone call, and she was eager for any updates. MBS was carrying live coverage of the first transport of survivors from Brasilia arriving at Fokker Field, the new Southern Cross air base at Canyon Point - the current politically renaming of the ruins of the county & city of Custer, located on the opposite side of the Mt Rushmore & Crazy Horse monuments from Monument City. Her parents and "little sister" were the first ones out of the transport, followed by the Grants. According the schedule, Karen's parents were flying escort for the next flight in, due to arrive in about an hour, but Noel was visible behind Dana, holding on to her best friend's arm.

The thought of their parents being here gave her mixed feelings. Karen had told her about Max and Scott's conversation the day before their trip here, and it had worried Marie more than it had Scott for quite a while. However, she had come to terms with it, and was willing to sacrifice herself to save Scott if her parents ever tried to harm him.

Her pondering was disturbed by the beeping of the vidphone, and the caller caught her by surprise.

"Corporal d'Argent?" Miriya asked.

"Y-yes Mo...er...yes, ma'am?"

"Max and I just arrived from the Brasilia disaster, and I was wondering if you and Corporal Ellison could babysit for me like you did down there. Kayra and Jean were wondering if you could take care of Noel and Bowie as well, because it will take time for us to get moved in to our temporary quarters."

"I would be glad to take care of them. You are all like family to Karen and me."

"Thank you. Max will be by your quarters in about a half-hour to drop them off."

"I'll be waiting. Miriya, I hope we can get together sometime."

"We will, as soon as this mess gets stabilized. Tell Karen I said hello."

"I will. Tell Max that we have heard that the ship-fall was caused by Earth separatists, not Zentraedi. It's important that the Zentraedi are cleared of this."

"Are you sure of your information?"

"Definite; but we can't reveal the source in order to protect it."

"I understand. Good-bye, Marie.

"Good-bye, Commander." Maybe having Mom and Dad in town might not be a bad idea after all, she thought to herself. If and when they do find out about me, it won't hurt to already be their friend, in order to reduce the danger to Scott.

**Chapter Six:**

"The Flower of Life is a strange life form, that we've only begun to scratch the surface of. Genetically, it seems to possess as many attributes of Earth's animal life as it does plant life. Chemically, its leaves contain an alkaloid that makes cocaine seem like a placebo. Paraphysically, it can induce visions of other times and places in a way we don't understand. Its derivative, Protoculture, enables the engineering of both man and machine in a way that defies science as well, and creates a form of symbiosis between the two. Who knows what else it is capable of, or should we even want to know?"

- Dr. Emil Lang, to technicians chosen to assist him and Lazlo Zand in the study of Protoculture; New Tokyo, 12 March 2015

Canyon Point was crowded, now that the Southern Cross units there had to share their facilities with Skull Squadron as well as Robotech Research's test pilot squadron, which had followed Dr. Lang to Monument three months before. The Southern Knights, the TASC squadron that had been assigned to Brasilia, was still in the Southlands, having to make do with the first production models of the Logan Fighter. The reasoning for their staying while Skull went north was complex, but it was mostly due to the Logans VTOL capability and small size allowing the Knights to work out of smaller encampments. The RDF's Valkyries would have had to take off and land in Guardian mode, and would have stood out like crazy due to their size. However, both groups wished that their positions were reversed, for very different reasons.

The Knights hadn't had any R&R in six months, when their Carnival party in Nueva Janeiro deteriorated into a riot that caused eight blocks of the downtown to go up in flames. After going through hearings that severely chastened them (despite that all the charges were dropped due to lack of concrete evidence against them), they were put to work rebuilding the area with their mecha, as a goodwill gesture, while still having to fly normal mission loads. After the repairs were completed, they spent the rest of the time up to the disaster up to their cockpits in the hazards of the Amazon rain forest. They were to have returned to Brasilia Base the day after it was destroyed. Skull, on the other hand, had to move in with their rivals in the TASC, and the fact that the squadron was the 1st TASC Ghost Riders didn't help matters. Most of Skull believed the Ghosts to be corrupt as their supposedly late commander, T.R. Edwards, and Max was once overheard saying that he would have felt safer moving in with Khyron's Botoru Battalion.

Life in Highlander was starting to approach normal again, due to their moving in with the others in Lang's test pilot barracks. This didn't exactly thrill Scott, as Karen looked very much like her mother now, and he was afraid that Shannon or Kayra would notice. At least Max and Miriya didn't have an adult Dana to compare with Marie, but having Dana was almost as bad. More than once, when Marie was babysitting, people they met thought Marie and Dana were either sisters or mother and daughter, and Scott prayed that it would never got back to the girls parents. Scott and Maria Perez had started seeing each other again, but neither was really serious about it. Maria half-knew that things could never be the way they used to be, but wasn't sure she wanted to let go. At best, they were little more than drinking buddies that ended up in the sack occasionally.

Strangely enough, Scott had developed a familial bond with his niece, Karen, stronger than any he had ever had before in his life, with the possible exception of his parents. Their relationship had drawn closer than most sibling or parent/child relationships, to the point where they could almost anticipate the other's thoughts. Of course, Karen COULD actually read his thoughts, but she wouldn't do so without permission. However, all Scott had to do was concentrate on her, and she would contact him by conventional means or telepathy, whichever was more convenient to both of them. Karen also resumed her studies with Dr. Lang, often working late into the night on her projects. It was one of these night sessions that gave Scott a bad case of deja vu. He had almost forgotten the incident that had led to his discovery of the girls' dual identities, but what they had learned of Earth's forgotten past in that abandoned base came rushing back into his mind and Marie's that night.

"Scott, come quick! Karen acting weird again!"

"Calm down, Marie. What happened?"

"Sh-she stayed up all night, studying that plant she brought back from Dr. Lang's lab. When I woke up this morning, she was unconscious in her mini-lab, muttering something over and over again!"

"Have you called Jean?"

"She's already on her way. I called her first, then I called you.

"Unlock your door; I'll be right over, as soon as I get my pants on."

Karen was slumped over on her desk, just as Marie had described. A dictating pad was sitting to her side, which she had been using to record her observations, and it was still recording her on both digitally and on paper.

"...we are one...one race..."

"Karen! Karen, wake up!" Scott grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her up into a sitting position and shaking her.

"Wha... What happened?"

"Maybe you can tell me. Marie woke up and found you in some sort of trance, muttering things that she read about in the ruins, over and over again." Scott looked at the potted plant on the desk, and thought it looked very strange, almost unearthly."Maybe you had an allergic reaction or something."

"Marie, is Jean here yet?"

"She's at the door; should I let her in?"

"She isn't going to do us any good out in the hall. Karen, I want you to get checked out by Jean, to make sure you're really okay." Scott put his hand on the desk near the Plant, then jerked it back when its leaves smacked him. "What the hell is that thing?"

"Just your garden-variety Invid Flower of Life," Karen replied sleepily.

"Flower of Life? Are you nuts? One of the reasons Khyron was such a basket case was because he was addicted to that thing! Marie, take that THING back to Dr. Lang right now! If I ever see one of those plants again, it'll be too soon! Get rid of it!"

Scott stormed out of the apartment, nearly running over Jean as she came down the hallway from the kitchenette area, and failing to notice the huge pile of printed transcript of Karen's recorder. While Jean was giving Karen the physical, Marie scanned through the printout, and realized that what Karen had said in her delirium would be too much of a shock to humanity if it became public. That the Robotech Masters were descended from the survivors of Atlantis was considered a bargaining chip for the SDF-3 mission. The disclosure that the Masters' primary foe was descended from the other faction that destroyed Earth's first civilization probably would have given Zor a heart attack, had he known! She took the printout and hid it in her personal effects, then erased the recorder's memory. No one was ready for the revelations Karen had made, possibly not even Karen herself.

**Interlude: Shapings - A Ballad, by Karen Freeman**

**(From a Flower-induced vision in 2017, rewritten in its final form, 2034)**

This is a story of three races old,

Whose disparate paths did once again fold.

Oblivious to their common birth,

They strived to be each others' dearth.

Their tale begins on a world called Tyr,

Where two Goliaths did each other fear.

In their greed to have it all,

They came to cause their world to fall.

The armies clashed in the disputed land,

Driving out the native bands.

The Indi lost, but in their ire,

They slew the Tirons with a rain of fire.

The Tirons were bloodied, but not all were dead,

And the fire was now launched onto the Indi's head.

Both nations died under glowing clouds,

Leaving only their wizards to mourn aloud.

While the innocent tried to heal their scars,

The wizards left Tyr for the stars.

Those left behind lost the light,

While the wizards sailed through the night.

The wizards settled down, two races apart,

And with their humanity they tried to part.

The Tirons wiped their minds of their disgrace,

While the Indi changed both mind and face.

They would meet again, these wayward races;

Of humanity left, there were no traces.

The Tiron's greed, no small flood,

Caused them to create giants from their own blood.

The Tirons stole the Indi's flower,

Transmuting the seeds into a source of power.

To expand their power by means of war,

The giants stole in the name of Zor.

Their peace now broken, their harmony shattered,

The Indi changed, nothing else mattered.

They turned to hate, the weakest power;

Thev gave their all to save their flower.

Aghast of the greed, hating the war,

The awful truth had dawned on Zor.

His boon had gone from his great pride

To a tool now meant for genocide.

Zor sent his ship out of the fray,

Praying to be forgiven of his part of the play.

Into the hands of the mother race,

as his life left him, it crossed time and space.

Zor aimed well, it did not veer,

His ship found the world of Tyr.

The ship united a warring world,

To which Zor's torch had now been hurled.

The Giants came, by their Masters told,

To ravage their ancestors' world of old.

Though most the world was laid to waste,

Earth was the toughest foe they'd ever faced.

Giants they were, full of pride,

But for all their might, they were empty inside.

The Giants' ranks were torn apart

By the powerful forces of the human heart.

In their efforts to end their woes,

The Children of Tyr return home as foes.

They molest this world, this planet Earth,

The world that did their ancestors birth.

All is not lost, though we must still fight;

We must strive to bring our brethren back to the light.

We must end now, what our ancestors began,

And reunite here the races of Man.

**Chapter Seven:**

"TO: Operation Time-Off conspirators.

FROM: Commander, Southlands Air wing, Skull Squadron.

Mir told me of your discussions on the subject of lighting a fire, so to speak, under Rick to get him to propose to Lisa. I've got an idea how to do it, and where. But there's only one condition - I want the place wired. There's no telling how he'll pop the question, and I want to hear it myself when he does, not to mention Lisa's reaction. Besides, without some way to force him to do it, he won't do it; we have to let him know that we'll know it if he tries to fake it. One last thing: you won't believe who volunteered to hold the engagement party in February, if the lovebirds wait that long..."

- Memo sent by Max Sterling to Marie d'Argent and Karen Ellison, 10/21/17

Scott was both pleased and upset about Karen and Marie's plans to get the two Admirals married, especially after he found out that they had dragged the Sterlings in on it. But then, if Max wanted to most of the planning(and shoulder the responsibility), it was fine by him. Surely, Rick and Lisa wouldn't do anything to their best friends when the shit hit the fan.

It was now Veteran's Day, a pre-Zentraedi holiday marking the end of the first World War, 99 years before, and honoring those who had served and died in it or the other two global wars of the previous century. It was one of the few holidays that survived the arrival of the Zentraedi and world unification. Veteran's Day now took on the traditions of the old U.S. Memorial Day, as November 11th was a more hospitable date for vacations in the Southern Hemisphere than late May. Besides, Veteran's Day was already honored worldwide as Remembrance Day. Among these traditions was that of a picnic with friends, to reflect on the past and forget today's worries. Rick and Lisa jumped at the chance to come Earthside for an afternoon in the Bahamas, even if it meant they would have plenty of company. They didn't think it odd when Karen took Dana on a nature hike on the far side of the small island, nor when Scott and Marie, then Max and Miriya wandered off.

However, they began to worry when none of the others had returned by sunset. A quick search of the island resulted in their discovery that they were alone, and the boat they had arrived in was on the bottom of the cove, in twenty feet of water. Finally, they gave up the search and went into the bungalow that was the only structure on the island. On another island, three miles away, the conspirators were gathered around the receiver that was recording the sounds coming from the hidden mikes in the beach house.

"Rick, where could they have gone?"

"I don't know, and I don't like it one bit. For all we know, they could have been captured or killed by Zentraedi, pirates, or worse."

"Pirates? You've got to be kidding."

"You know what I mean, Lisa. They may not carry cutlasses and fly the Jolly Roger anymore, but they're just as deadly."

"Why don't I fix us dinner and see if they left us a note or something in the kitchen. You can search in here."

"I hope they did. Why didn't we look for one before?"

"We were looking for them, not a note, assuming that they wouldn't just abandon us."

"I guess you're right." A ruffling noise came over the living room mike as Rick flipped through the magazine on the table, then picked up the envelope that dropped out of it. "Hmm... An envelope with my name on it. I wonder..." Rick read the letter out loud to himself.

"`Dear Rick; Miriya, Scott and I thought that you two have been working too hard, and needed a week off. The rest of the general staff agreed, so don't worry about the RDF going under in your absence; we've had this planned for weeks. We'll be back to pick you up on Sunday the 19th, so you can get back to Little Luna in time to go to work on the 20th. However, there is one condition -PROPOSE. If you don't propose, we'll leave you two on the island until you do. Don't try to lie your way around it; the whole island is wired for sound, but we'll turn it off as soon as you get an answer from Lisa. You two have been putting it off too long as it is. Have a nice vacation! - Max..' Max, you little-"

"Rick, did you say something?"

"Uhm...no, I was just reading out loud."

"Could you come into the kitchen and help me? I can't leave the food I've already got cooking."

"Be right there."

"Thanks. Could you get the can of tomato sauce from the cabinet, and open it for me?"

"Here you go."

"That was quick. While you've got the cabinet open, could you inventory our food supply? Who knows how long we'll have to stay here."

"Let's see. We have three cans of tomato soup, one bottle of rum, two cans of banana daiquiri mix, two cans of Spam, Lisawillyoumarryme, a box of dehydrated milk..."

"WERT! What did you say?"

"Uhhhh... I said, will you marry me? .

"IT'S ABOUT TIME!"

"Is that a yes?" Rick asked meekly.

"Rick Hunter, you...you... of course it-s a yes!"

"Good, now we can enjoy the rest of this vacation our friends arranged for us.

"Vacation?"

"Yeah, read this." After a short pause, Lisa looked under the table and found the kitchen bug, and spoke into it.

"Max, if you're still listening, I hope you like the jungle. You and the rest of Skull are going back to the Southlands as soon as I get back in uniform!"

"Well, I guess we've heard enough," Max said as he reached over and turned off the receiver. "I just hope she calms down a bit before we pick them up next Sunday. Scott, chill out. If I know them, they've probably forgotten about the food and gone past the talking stage by now. Get some sleep; we'll check on them in the morning."

Scott woke up the next morning with high tide coming up around his ankles. Evidently, he had been carried from where he had been sleeping and placed on the beach at this position for this very reason.

"Can't a guy get a normal night's sleep around here?"

"Nope," Karen said, walking up and giving him a peck on the forehead.

"What is it now, Karen?" he asked, climbing to his feet, brushing off the sand off of himself, and pulling his uniform on over his swimming trunks.

"I thought you might like to take care of these." She tossed him a net beach bag filled with clothes.

"What? These are Rick and Lisa's clothes from last night. What are they gonna wear?"

"I left them a loincloth, a grass skirt and a bikini. They'll make do."

"Karen, you'll be the death of me, if you don't get me busted down to Private-1 first."

"Just as long as you stick around long enough to give me away."

"I don't know who'd be crazy enough to marry you, but I'll try to hang around that long."

"Speaking of love and marriage, what's with you and Marie? I don't have to be telepathic to know that you two care for each other, but you seem to go out of your way to drive her away from you when she tries to express her feelings toward you."

"Karen, I can't handle the responsibility. One of these days, one of you is going to get shot down or blown up, and Max is gonna want to inform the next of kin. What am I gonna say, I'm sorry, Max, but Marie was killed in combat today, and, incidentally, she was your daughter? I just couldn't handle it, and I don't know how Max would take it, or Miriya, for that matter. I keep having this recurring nightmare that Marie dies, her parents find out who she was, then Miriya gets Macronized and proceeds to crush me like a cockroach. I wake up screaming, with a memory of a size 600 sneaker smashing into my face."

"Uncle, whatever will be, will be. Enjoy life now, while you can. Don't let your fears stop you from loving her. If Shannon had let his fear of how he would be treated for loving Kayra affect their relationship, I would have never been born. And what about Max and Miriya? If Max hadn't convinced Miriya of his love, all of humanity this side of Tyrol would be dead right now. Don't let others rule your life. I don't; even physical laws bend to my will. You may not have my powers, but you CAN change things. By hiding your feelings, you only cause the hurt to grow."

"I know, but I can't help it. For the first time since I watched Mom and Dad die, I feel helpless, at everyone's mercy." Scott's eyes began to water, as he hugged his niece."I appreciate what you're trying to do for Marie and me, but I've got to work this out on my own. I got word last night; I have to take Skull down to guard the Brasilia reconstruction. I'll see you when your vacation's over." He kissed her on the forehead, then turned and walked to his VT.

As his plane rose into the early morning sky, Marie came out of the weeds, from where she had watched and listened to Scott and Karen's conversation. Karen sensed her approach, and turned to meet her friend.

"I've done what I can. It's all up to him now."

"Thank you for trying, Karen. At least he admits to you that he loves me."

"His problem is more than his fear of your parents, Marie. He's also afraid of losing you in the same way he lost his parents, in a situation that he could do nothing but watch you die. We all face this, but he's actually had it happen to him. More than likely, something will have to shock him into coming around, but until then, all we can do is hope that he does come around someday."

"I'm going back to Monument to work on my wedding present for the Admirals. Tell Max for me that I left, OK?"

"I will. I just wish you'd tell me what this present is. You've been spending almost as much time in Emil's labs as I have."

"It's a secret; you'll find out when they do."

"Marie, remember; Scott does love you; he just doesn't want to lose anyone else."

"And I wouldn't want to lose him. But someone once said some must die, for others to live , and death in war is a risk we all face. The sooner he accepts it, the better for all of us." They embraced, as Marie began crying.

**Chapter Eight:**

"...Till I make you take me

On your Mighty Wings;

Make you take me

On your mighty wings across the sky."

- "Mighty Wings", by Cheap Trick(1986). From the soundtrack of the movie TOP GUN.

Brasilia Base was rebuilt by Thanksgiving, mainly due to the work of several full-size Zentraedi construction crews, and it was officially reoccupied on 1 December. It was now the day before Christmas, and Marie had persuaded Scott to help with a surprise birthday party for Karen. This would be helped along by a big celebration planned for later in the day for the Brasilia personnel, highlighted by a Minmei concert, with an amateur night for the personnel as the opening act. As Karen was going to be in the show, it meant that Scott and Marie would be alone until the concert ended.

"Are you sure she doesn't suspect what you're planning?"

"Trust me. She thinks I'm trying to get alone with you for a while."

"Are you?"

"Well, as they used to say in America, I plead the Fifth."

"I thought so. But having a birthday party for her is a good idea. This is her first birthday, and Christmas, for that matter."

"I never said that I wasn't going to throw her a party, Scott. I just thought that I could kill two birds with one stone. A double misdirection, so to speak."

"We'd better hurry, if we're going to get some good seats upstairs. I can't believe that Karen actually got Kayra and Dani to sing backup for her in the prelims."

"Kayra's a professional singer, so she isn't eligible for the recording contract; otherwise, she'd be performing herself. I hear they call themselves the Flyin Sirens, but I've already heard them referred to as `The Good, the Bad, and the Zentraedi .'"

"Let me guess; the middle one is the one with sandy blonde hair."

"Yup. Danielle can sing, but she's no Minmei. Kayra studied with Minmei's old voice coach two years ago, when she made that album before she joined the RDF. And, as you know, everything that Kayra knew back then, Karen knows."

Someone knocked on the door of Karen and Marie's apartment. The person who was knocking caught them off-guard.

"Miriya! I thought you'd be upstairs by now. Is something wrong?"

"I hate to ruin your plans, but Kayra and I have a problem. Our two little hellions just about killed Bowie with one of their practical jokes. They watched an oldThree Stooges movie with Max and Shannon last night, and today they tried to rig a bucket above a door to dump water on Bowie. Instead, the bucket fell and almost hit him. You know how serious his heart problem is; Jean almost hit the girls when she found out what they had done. She kept muttering something about always being able to make new ones if she killed them. If she wasn't a human, I'd swear she was one of my old squadmates from the Quadronos. But, back to my problem; the girls are grounded, and we need someone to watch them, and you two are drafted. Believe it or not, Bowie wants to stay down here with them as well, despite what happened."

"It's okay, Commander," Marie replied. "We'll just stay down here and watch the show on TV. Besides, it will give YOU and the other two proud mothers time to do what parents do this time of year."

"Yeah, Miriya. We're at the bottom of the world's biggest chimney, so you Santas are gonna need all the help you can get!"

"Good. When you're ready for them, call Max and he'll bring them over. He had to come back down here just to calm everyone down. I'll pick them up tonight, unless you don't mind them stay-" Miriya was interrupted by alert klaxons, and she quickly ran over to the apartment's vidphone to check in.

"Lieutenant Commander Sterling here. What's the situation?"

"There's a large force of hostiles attacking the base. Somehow they made it past the outer perimeter without triggering the alarms, and their infantry started laying covering fire. We can't get any of the mecha out of the hangar without them being fragged. The second a mech goes through the hangar doors, they're wasted."

"Try getting Skull out in Guardian mode. Have them collect in the back of the back of the hangar in Battloid, then have individuals go Guardian and try to get up the speed and go Jet as soon as they clear the doorway. The Knight's Logans are VTOL, aren't they?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Have them do the same, only they can do the whole run in Jet mode. Keep all the Destroids and Battloids in until we can cover their exit. Skulls One, Two, Three and Twenty will be taking off from the pipe in five minutes."

"Roger, Commander. This week's alert call signs are Delta Lima." After Scott's report that the attack that decimated the base was tied to possible internal enemies, Max ordered that the usual squadron call signs not be used during base defense, instead random lists of names be assigned. They set it up using various prolific fantasy and science fiction series, and having the order of the lists determined by the order of a bunch of dog-eared paperbacks and series guides stuck on a shelf in the office of the command center's chief communications officer. Last week, for example, the name list was Starfleet ship names, and the week before, characters from Anne McCaffrey's fiction. This week, apparently, it was Dungeons & Dragons characters from the world of Krynn.

"Sterling out. Come on, you two; we'll worry about babysitting later."

"Can we use the Legios?"

"If you think she can handle it, Scott."

"No problem, Commander."

"You set back there?" Scott called back to the Beta.

"I'm as ready as I'll ever be. These controls are a bit different than a Valkyrie's. I'm not so sure I'll be able to fly this thing very well."

"Don't worry about flying it; I'll be doing all the flying, unless we separate. You just concentrate on using your missile pods back there. How are the engines?"

"Full power."

"Hang on, then; this thing has more power than three of our VTs combined. Lift-off in three, two, one... Yeeee-Haaaa!"

The Legios had been elevated for a vertical takeoff, and once loosened, it screamed up the cannon barrel, passing Max and Miriya half-way up and leaving them far behind.

"Omigod, Scott, you weren't kidding about this thing! We'll have to pick up my stomach on the way down. I'll go for the Artillery Pods backing up the infantry, and you take care of defending us."

"Yes, Admiral Sterling."

"Scott! What if Max or Miriya heard that?"

"They couldn't; they're still in the tube. Besides, we're still on the intercom. I'm switching us to the net now. Handle communications for us as well, okay, Marie?"

"Just shut up and fly. Alhana to Shalost, Alhana to Shalost. The inner southern perimeter has been overrun by Artillery Pods. We are firing on them now." She launched a spread of missiles at the offending mecha, then began to give an accounting of the enemy forces. "The opposition seems to be mainly full-sized. There are infantry groups in the north and west perimeters, and the pods I fired on are the only visible ground mecha. There are incoming aerial mecha, range ten kilometers. I read three FPAs and seven Stingers. They are moving in to engage us."

"Roger, Alhana. Try to target the ground troops to the west, to free up the rest of Skull. Sturm, do you copy?"

"Roger, Shalost, we're on our way. Sturm to Laurana, would you and Tanis hurry up? Your former squadmates are giving me hell up here!" Scott pulled the Legios into a wingover, riddling the lead Quadrono with his GUs, only to have the others launch on him.

"Right behind you, Sturm." Miriya took out the two remaining Power Armors, sending them to the ground as smoking heaps.

"Thanks, Laurana. Cover us; I'm taking this hog in for a bombing run."

"Roger, Sturm; we'll hold off the Stingers."

Scott flew over the hundred or so Zentraedi who were firing at the hangar doors, allowing Marie to drop the bombs almost on top of the troops heads, as well as letting her dump a few missiles in the ones the bomb blasts couldn't reach. When the smoke cleared, the way was open for both Skull and one of the Destroid squads to enter the battle.

"Hey, watch it!" A Stinger had been damaged by Miriya, and it tried to take the Legios with it. Marie blew it up at a range of less than twenty meters, and its flaming wreckage slammed into the Beta. "Marie, are you okay back there? Marie?" No reply came from the Beta.

Scott flew into the center of the fighting, and mass-launched his missiles at the remaining Stingers, emptying both VTs' missile pods. After this, he calmed down a bit, and headed in to Skull's hangar, requesting medical assistance for Marie; he could move the Legios downstairs later, after it had been fixed up and reloaded. As it turned out, Marie had a headache and some bruises, mostly due to the fact she had forgotten to strap her helmet on, and she'd blacked out when the impact knocked her around the cabin so hard that the helmet came off.

After she was treated and released into Scott's care, they took the elevator back down to the residential level, and got the kids from Vince, who had been watching them while everyone else was either flying VTs or working in the med center. The show started three hours behind schedule, but was done in its entirety. One act had all three of its members die in one of the hangars, trying to cover the VTs as they launched, so its time slot was filled instead by a period of silence for them and the others who would not live to see Christmas 2017. By the time Karen's turn in the prelims came, the three children were already asleep in Marie's room, and Scott and Marie had finished a late dinner.

"Scott?" Marie said, leaving the kitchenette where she had just taken the dishes.

"Yeah, Marie?"

"You look like you could use a massage. Want me to give you one?"

"Thanks, Marie. I haven't felt this tired since basic training."

Marie started massaging his shoulders and neck, moving down and working on his sides and back. Suddenly, she slid around him and sat on his lap, face to face, and they held each other. As Karen sang in the background, their lips touched.

**Chapter Nine:**

"If she would have been faithful,

If she would have been true;

Then I would have been cheated,

I would never know real love,

I would have missed out on you."

- Chicago, "If She Would Have Been Faithful"(1986)

The apartment door opened suddenly, making them jump back from each other in surprise. There, in the doorway, was a very shocked-looking Maria Perez.

"Scott, you... you two-timing son of a bitch!" She turned, and ran down the hall.

"Maria, wait!" Scott took off after her, reaching the doorway it time to see her heading toward two GMP in body armor on patrol. "YOU TWO! Stop her!"

The two GMP tried to comply, but Maria got by them by kneeing one of them in the groin so hard that it doubled him up, despite his body armor. Finally, Scott caught up with her.

"Maria, I can explain-"

"Explain? You don't have to explain anything. Do you want to hear something funny? I came there looking for you to tell you I was calling it quits. I guess I kinda lost it when I caught you fooling around, even though I've been doing the same thing myself."

"Logan?"

"Yeah. Scott, aren't we a pair? Trying to keep our relationship going, even though neither of us want it? Be happy with Marie; I've seen how you two look at each other, there's no denying it. Now get back to her place and tell her how you feel before I do to you what I did to that poor Gimp."

"Can I still call you if I need someone to talk to?"

"Of course; I can always use a good laugh."

"Thanks again, Maria. I think I understand it all now. See you tomorrow at dinner."

"Good idea; we'll both probably be too tired for breakfast, so it's a date. You've got to see my engagement ring; he didn't even wait for me to talk with you to propose."

"And you and Alex are invited to my wedding, followed shortly thereafter by my funeral. when the father of the bride finds out."

"Finds out what?"

"That he's the father of the bride as well as being my best man."

"I couldn't wait to hear this one, under normal circumstances, but I'll have to take a rain check. Alex is waiting for me to come back to his place."

"You don't have the security clearance for the story, anyway, believe it or not. Sayonara, Conchita."

"You better tell me when I have clearance. Have fun, but don't wake the kids."

When Scott got back to Marie's room, she had cleaned the place up, and was surprised to see him return.

"Scott, what happened?"

"I finally came to my senses, that's what."

"Are you going to stay up with me and watch the rest of the show, or do you and Maria have something else planned?"

"Actually, I had something else planned for us." He grabbed her, slung her over his shoulder, and proceeded to carry her into Karen's unoccupied bedroom. He tossed her down on the bed and locked the door. "Marie, I'm never gonna let you go again. Will you marry me?"

"Marry? Anytime you're ready."

"How about tomorrow afternoon?"

"If we're awake by then..."

In the background, Karen sung on...

"Knew it so easy, don't have to think it thriough

Love is for giving

I know I'm just livin' for you

Love is for giving

I know I'm just livin' for you."

When Karen finally made it back to the apartment around 0300, she found her bedroom door locked. A quick mental peek told her who was in there, so she went into Marie's room, and climbed into bed with Noel, Dana and Bowie. She curled up around her little sister, and drifted off to sleep, thinking of the future.

**Chapter Ten:**

"Will it grow cold, the secret that I hide;

Will I grow old?

How would they hear,

When will they learn,

How would they know?"

- "Live to Tell", Madonna(1986), covered by Karen on her album "Heart and Soul"(2018)

It was around 1100 when Karen finally got up the nerve to wake Scott and Marie. When they finally did get up, Karen sent the kids home to open their presents, and they began to discuss the night before.

"I think Rick should perform the ceremony," Karen said. "After all, he is one of the only four people beside you that knows our secret, and he and Lisa are the only two with the power to marry people. You have to give your real name in the ceremony and on the paperwork, Marie, or else it isn't legal. They have to be the ones."

"But what about a second witness?" Marie asked. "Lisa would be the first, but we can't expect Jean or Emil to drop everything on short notice to be a witness."

"What about me?"

"I've already thought of that, Karen," Scott said. "The only reason that Marie and I can be married at all is that she's a clone, and that makes her fall under the laws concerning Zentraedi. However, technically, you might still be considered a one-year-old in the eyes of the law, and wouldn't qualify; sorry."

"Then what about Max and Miriya?"

"You've got to be kidding! What do you want me to do, walk up to them and say `Hi Mommy and Daddy, I want you to give me away'?"

"Karen, I have to agree with Marie. You know about my nightmares about Max and Miriya. How would they react with the proof of Marie's claim staring them literally in their faces?"

"You've got to tell them sometime, you know. It might as well be now."

Well..."

"Jean will agree with me on this. It will be easier for Max and Miriya to accept you two if you tell them now. The longer you wait, the more of a shock it will be, not to mention the more angry they'll be for you not telling them earlier."

"I'm beginning to think you're right, Karen. I will tell them. Scott?"

"I'm not exactly thrilled with the possibilities, but if you want to tell them now, I'll go along."

"You won't regret it, Scott."

"Max, this is Scott. I have something I need to tell you and Miriya, in private. Is it possible for us to come over and speak with you after you come down from Ops?"

"So, you two finally got it together. I'm happy for you."

"You might want to save the congratulations until we're through with our talk."

"Okay; I should be through up here at 1600. How does that sound?"

"Fine."

"I'll see you when I get there. Mir will probably be there with Dana when you come over, so I'll call her and tell her to expect you. I'll get there as soon as I can. Congratulations." Max signed off.

"That's what you think, Max," Scott muttered to the empty screen.

"Hello Scott, Marie. Max said you'd be coming over. I hope that Dana wasn't too much of a problem last night."

"I think that bawling out Jean gave her calmed her down for once."

"Then it must have wore off this morning. So, Max tells me that you two finally decided to get married. What took you so long?"

"Well, that's what we need to talk to you two about."

"Can you tell me now, or do you want to wait until Max gets here?"

"I think it would be best to wait."

"I see. Dana!" Miriya yelled down the hallway after hearing an inhuman whine come from the girl's room. "Are you pestering the cat again? Excuse me while I go to the poor thing's rescue." Miriya stood and went down the hall to Dana's room. While she was there, Max got home.

"Scott, where's Miriya?"

"Dana's room. Dana was doing something to that kitten you gave her for Christmas."

"I should have known. Scott, can I get you something to drink?"

"No, but I advise you to get something for yourself, preferably something strong."

Miriya came back into the room, and sat down next to Max.

"Now that we're all together, Scott, what is it that we need to talk about?"

"Max, do you remember our conversation about Marie a few months ago?"

"Yes. You said that she was underage and the daughter of some VIPs you knew. You also said that they weren't aware she was alive."

"Well, uh... we thought it might be proper for her parents to find out about her. It wouldn't seem right for her parents to not be invited to the wedding. Here are copies for each of you of the report that Jean and I did on Marie and Karen. Maybe it will help explain our problem."

He handed the reports to Max and Miriya, then sat down, trying to put Marie between himself and his commanders. Miriya finished first, and to Scott's surprise, she responded by hugging Marie like the long-lost daughter she was. Max, however, was another story entirely.

"FREEMAN, YOU'RE A DEAD MAN!" Max vaulted the coffee table, grabbing Scott by the throat. The couch that Scott was setting on collapsed under the impact, but Max's grip didn't falter. Miriya and Marie seemed to be in shock for a second, then came around.

"Max, stop it, STOP IT!" Miriya screamed, trying her best to pull her husband back, but not having any luck.

"Daddy, please!"

Visions of his obituary filled Scott's head; "Ace Pilot Killed by Commander Sterling". As he started to black out, he heard Marie's voice.

"Daddy, you don't leave me any other choice. I'm sorry." Max jerked from the shock of Marie's flight boot impacting his groin. He then slumped to the floor, allowing Scott to breathe again.

"Mom, call Jean. They may need some help, and make sure she brings some sedatives for Dad. I don't want to be a widow before I'm married."

Things calmed down a bit after that. Jean drugged Max up enough so that he couldn't have another fit for the next three hours, even if he wanted to. As soon as the drugs wore off enough to allow him to understand the discussion without losing his cool (about 1730), the talking continued.

"Max, I had no idea who Marie was when I fell in love with her. After I found out, I tried my best to break off the relationship; Cod knows, I tried. But each time I tried, I wouldn't get far before I found that I was right back with her again."

"And what about your niece? Did you do anything with her?" Max snapped back.

"No. However, she was the main reason that Marie and I finally acknowledged what we felt for each other. Karen wouldn't let either of us quit. She kept putting us together, breaking down the barriers faster than I could build them. If it hadn't been for Karen always sticking her nose into our relationship, Marie and I probably would have lived separate lives, and been miserable every minute of them. Karen is like a daughter to me, or a sister: all that she asks of me is that I accept her for what she is."

"Daddy, Karen was the one responsible for my creation; the only one. My relationship with Scott was totally unforeseen. Do you really think he would do anything that would hurt you? All we want from you is your approval of our marriage."

"Dan- Marie, maybe you're right. Heck, I even encouraged him at one point to go after you. After seeing what Rick and Lisa went through in Macross by denying their feelings, I have no right to deny anyone else. I give my blessings. Who knows? I might even become a grandfather before I'm 30."

"That's it?" Scott couldn't believe that Max had changed his mind that much so quickly.

"Marie's not a little girl; she has her own life to live. I don't have any right to deny her that."

"When do you think we can get married?"

"What about tonight?" Miriya suggested.

"You must be joking."

"Why not, Scott?"

"Who would perform the ceremony, and what about the license, the blood tests and all that other stuff?"

"Jean said that she can waive the blood tests, and Rick's already volunteered to conduct the ceremony."

"Who asked him?" both Scott and Max asked.

"Jean and Karen," Miriya replied. "They were talking to him when we called in about your injuries. As for the license, they're working on it on Little Luna. By the time we get there, all it will require is the signatures."

"But tonight?" Scott asked. He never thought he would actually get married today.

"There's a shuttle flight leaving at 1945. You'll get to honeymoon up there. Go pack what you'll need, Scott, and be at the shuttle hangar at 1900 in your dress uniform. Karen's already packing for Marie."

"What will I wear for the ceremony?"

"You don't think I'd let my daughter get married in her uniform, do you?" Miriya went into the master bedroom, then came out with a large box.

"Your wedding dress? But it won't fit me!"

"It will by the time we take off. Now scram, Scott; we can't have you seeing her in this dress before the ceremony, can we?"

"See you in a while, Marie. I hope you have fun wearing that dress; you won't be in it long."

"Why, Scott; is that a promise?"

"No, it's a guarantee."

"Do you, Scott Carpenter Freeman, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?"

"I do."

"Do you, Marie Sterling d'Argent, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

"I do."

"Then, by the power invested in me by the Robotech Defense Force of the planet Earth, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss- You could have at least waited for me to tell you to kiss."

"Sorry about that, Rick," Scott said after about a thirty-second kiss. "We got in a hurry."

"Attention, everyone! And I do mean that in the military sense." Rick pulled something out of his pocket. "As you all know, marriages between officers and enlisted personnel are usually frowned upon. However, there are ways around this. Corporal Marie Sterling Freeman, step forward. As a result of your gallant efforts in combat above Brasilia Base on 24 December 2017, I am pleased to announce both you and your husband will be awarded the Titanium Medal. However, that will take time to clear through channels. In the meantime, you'll have to get used to wearing this piece of metal." He opened up the case to reveal 0-2 insignia. "I have the added pleasure to announce your promotion to Lieutenant, Junior Grade. Congratulations; think of it as your wedding present from your Uncle Rick and Aunt Lisa."

"Thank you, Uncle Rick," She saluted him, then gave him a peck on the cheek.

"Watch it, Lieutenant; you may make your Aunt Lisa jealous."

"She doesn't have anything to worry about; I've already found my man."

"Yeah, and he's getting tired," Scott added. "Shall we retire to the Honeymoon Suite?"

"I thought you'd never ask."


	4. Book One, Part Four

**Part Four: Twist of Fate**

**Chapter One:**

"Two hearts that lost the beat will now resume..."

- Late 20th century song lyrics.

Although it had been early November when Rick had proposed to Lisa(under duress), it wasn't until New Year's Eve that they announced their engagement formally. A wedding shower was scheduled for Valentine's Day, and there were rumors of an Easter wedding.

Scott Freeman was barely recovering himself by then, having spent most of his six-day honeymoon in the "Honeymoon Suite". The honeymoon ended with Marie and Karen returning to the "Atlantean" ruins with Dr. Lang, leaving Scott to return to Earth by himself to explain the sudden wedding to his squad. Janet in particular was incensed, wondering why she wasn't invited to (or even told about) her brother's wedding. Even harder to explain was Marie's sudden transformation from Corporal Jeanne-Marie d'Argent to 2nd Lt. Marie Sterling Freeman. Eventually, Scott gave the "official" explanation (authored by Karen) that Marie had been using an alias in order to avoid favoritism due to her being a relative of Max. The increase in rank was due to her heroics on Christmas Eve. The funny thing about this explanation was that it was essentially true. At first, people were wary of the story, but that changed when everyone started noticing how much Dana resembled her "Aunt Marie".

By the time February rolled around, Marie and Karen had returned, dressed in the "last" Atlantean styles. Scott had been wondering what he was going to get the Admirals for their wedding shower, ever since his own wedding, but couldn't think of anything by himself. As his wife was finally back home, he tried to get her to help him decide.

"Marie, what are we going to get them? What to you get for someone who has an entire planet under their control?"

"I think that the Soviets and Malcontents might beg to differ with the last part, but I get your point. You can stop worrying about it; I've already chosen our gifts."

"I don't like the sound of that. What did you get them, a selection of clothes from Fredericks of Poseidonis?"

"You'll just have to wait and find out for yourself when they do."

"I was afraid you were going to say that."

The shower and party was to be held in the military community of Las Vegas. All of Nevada was spared by the Zentraedi "Rain of Death", but the state had been mostly evacuated shortly afterward, due to the difficulty of feeding people there. In 2015, Las Vegas was resettled, as a test center for the Alpha and REF Destroid prototypes. While most of the casinos weren't reopened, per se', they were converted to barracks for the RDF personnel. One casino was different, though. Caesar's Palace was completely refurbished and given to Lynn-Minmei in 2016, to be her base of operations; a reward for the part she had played in the defeat of Dolza. Here, she could perform, raise money for worthy causes, and practice new songs for her world tours. Despite some initial reservations by Rick and Lisa, they finally accepted Minmei and Janice Em's offer to host the shower.

Minmei's Palace (as it had been renamed) was packed, come 14 February 2018. There was enough brass present to build an SDF, including representatives from the nations that had left the UEG. After all, the guests of honor had saved the entire planet almost seven years before, and were treated almost in the same manner as heads of state. One of the day's first events was a revival of an old Vegas tradition - the celebrity roast. The panel doing the roasting was mostly fleet officers and long-time Skulls, with Max Sterling playing emcee (as well as poking the most fun at the roastees). As the wedding date was finally set for the day before the SDF-3 launch (hopefully by the end of the year), it was decided that the gifts would all be given and opened today, so that the couple could make use of those that they couldn't take on the mission. As more and more people arrived, almost half of the old casino floor was covered with gifts, ranging in size from what had to be jewelry to a pair of light Cyclones from cross-time (painted with an experimental energy dissipation coating that made them a very un-military gold color) that were Dr. Lang's gifts. When the couple finally entered the casino, both of their jaws about hit the floor when they saw the immense pile of gifts.

"Max?" Rick called out, his microphone still on and attached to his uniform.

"Yeah, Rick?"

"Call Breetai. Tell him we're going to have to postpone the launch for a couple of years so we can open up all these gifts."

A wave of chuckles passed through the crowd, no one realizing how prophetic the seemingly innocuous joke would be. As Rick and Lisa waded into the mound of packages, Scott finally located Karen in the crowd and went to her.

"Well, what did we get them?" he asked.

"Whaddya mean, 'we'? Marie told me that you and she were getting the gift, and I deferred to your judgement in the matter."

"Omigod. Karen, open a telepathic link with me, and monitor my thoughts. I've got a really bad feeling about this, and I might need some of your special help if she's done something really stupid."

"Roger," she replied telepathically.

Scott made his way to the podium in the center of the mess, where Rick and Lisa were opening the packages. He stood behind them, hoping to get a glance at "his" gift. As it turned out, it was just an envelope, which at first eased his fears, then intensified them as he realized that Marie wouldn't have been so secretive on the present if it was just a card.

Rick opened the card, but before he could look at what it said, Lisa asked his opinion on a gift she had just opened (a matched set of edible underwear from the commander of Diamondback Squadron). Scott saw the card's message, though, and felt his heart jump up in his throat. The card had a familiar-looking locket in it, and the card read "Look in the doorway to the right". Scott looked, then screamed to Karen in his mind, "GET THEM OUT OF HERE!" Karen stooped to the floor, as if she had dropped something, teleported, and covered the doorway just as Rick read the card and turned to look.

By this time, all Rick could see was Karen's back, along with the shapes of two people she was evidently ushering out of the room. Scott breathed a sigh of relief, then tensed up again when Rick showed Lisa the locket.

"Lisa, doesn't this look familiar?"

"Yes; it looks like... Claudia's old locket, the one Roy gave her right after they first met. I wonder who it's from and how they knew what it looked like?"

"The note said "From Scott and Marie Freeman and friends", if that's any help. I wonder what's inside it?"

"Let me see... Rick?" Lisa voice weakened, as Scott slowly edged from the couple.

"What is it?"

"This IS Claudia's locket..." Lisa's legs seemed to go limp, and she fell to the floor in a faint, looking as if she had seen a ghost. Scott started running like hell when he saw her fall.

"Jean! We need some help up here!" Rick yelled to Jean Grant, who had been standing on the far end of the room with Vince and Bowie. As he saw her start working her way through the crowd, he saw Scott running for the exit. "Freeman! Come back here, you have some explaining to do!" As Scott wasn't about to stop, Rick took off running after him.

Although Scott was the faster runner by far, a few slips in the stairwell allowed Rick to catch him. Meanwhile, back at the platform, Jean looked at the locket that had caused all the trouble. It still contained the faded photo of Roy that had come with it, but there was another photo in it as well. A photo of Roy and Claudia, appearing impossibly younger than they had been in Macross, and wearing the new REF dress uniforms only approved and distributed the month before.

"Girls, you've really done it this time," Jean muttered as she pulled smelling salts from her purse.

**Chapter Two:**

"Marie's intelligent, don't get me wrong. It's just that she did a lot of stupid (well, actually, naive) things." - Karen Freeman, from "Est Sularus oth Mithas": The People of Highlander by Lynn Armana

"Freeman, you have a lot of explaining to do." Rick had tackled Scott on the stairs, halfway between the twelfth and fourteenth floors.

"Admiral, I found out about them when you did. It's my wife that's gonna do the explaining, provided neither of us kill her first. I told Karen to take them to my room. Come on up, and you can call down to see how Lisa is, and I'll have Marie paged to come up as well. We're getting to the bottom of this."

"Agreed; but if you DO end up being part of this, I'm going to execute you first and then worry about the Court Martial.

Scott and Rick staggered out of the stairwell, and down to room 1413. They were met at the door by Karen. After entering the room, the first things Rick saw were Roy Fokker and Claudia Grant.

"Hi, Rick; long time, no see. Uh, Rick, if you don't close your mouth, people'll think you're a slot machine and start putting coins in your ears and twisting your arm."

"R-Roy? Is it really you?"

"Well, I'm sure not T.R. Edwards."

"How did they bring you back?"

"Marie told me that everyone who died prior to the big Zentraedi attack whose body was recovered was placed in the stasis pods in the engineering area, for burial on Earth. After Dolza's defeat, the stasis lockers were ignored during the construction of New Macross. When the SDFs were destroyed, the war goods were salvaged, but the victims were left in place. The ships would serve as monuments and tombs

for the fallen."

"That was Lisa's idea. But how did that help? With the power loss, your bodies should have started to deteriorate."

"Some areas of the ship didn't lose power," Marie said as she entered the room. "The stasis units were based on the larger Zentraedi variety that had been on the SDF-1 when it crashed here, and had backup power plants. As for Claudia, that was a bit more difficult."

"Marie, what possessed you to clone them?" Scott asked, trying to stay calm. "Didn't you realize the trauma it would cause?"

"Not really, although I had second thoughts about my reasons after I had cloned them. I definitely didn't expect the panic they caused in you and Rick."

"Speaking of the cloning, how did you get around Claudia's cell damage?" Karen asked. "After all, her tube was without power for four years."

"Claudia's DNA was in pretty bad shape, but I was able to salvage over 99% percent of it that is human-specific. I lucked out, as what I couldn't salvage she happen to share with Vince."

"When did you do all this, Marie? I can't believe you did all this in a month."

"I didn't, Uncle Rick. I got the cell samples while I was stationed in Monument, during the Cyclone testing. Dr. Lang sent the four of us to Macross to collect radiation data, and I took advantage of the situation. I worked on the genetics until December, and placed the DNA into live cells a week before Christmas. I was lucky that Dr. Lang took us to the ruins in January, because the Zentraedi derelict there, the one that shot Scott, Karen and me down, had a working cloning chamber. I cloned them there, and frankly you don't want to know the amount of hell I went through to get parts of their memory back."

"Just how long ago did you start planning our rebirth?" Claudia asked, finally joining the discussion.

"Right after I was cloned, I began to explore my past. I had faint memories of you, Claudia; and I grew up hearing Mom, Lisa and the Grants talk about you, and to a lesser extent, Roy. I have three more projects that I'm working on, but they are in worse shape than Claudia and they don't have any living relatives I can compare them to. I'm doing them as an act of love for Rico, Bron and Konda, who haven't been the same since the bridge bunnies died. I'm letting Admiral Gloval rest, though; he had led a full life, and was tired of war."

"Marie, if Dana grows up to be half the person you are, we won't have to worry about the future."

"I hope so, Claudia; but I have this nagging feeling that she'll have to face a lot more than I have."

"Well, Big Brother; or is it Little Brother now? I'm physically older than you now, Roy, and I'm not sure how to handle our old nicknames for each other. Roy, what are we going to do with you two? You can't rejoin the RDF, at least not publicly; imagine the problems it would cause for Lisa and me, not to mention the Grants and Skull Squadron."

"Rick, I assume everyone here is cleared for knowledge of the Freemans' discovery in the Zone."

"Well, you came from there, and these three found it. After that, only Emil, Lisa and I know of it."

"Why don't you put Claudia and me in charge of it? With a little work, we can turn it into Earth's 'ace in the hole', so to speak. Give us misplaced mecha, such as the Cyclones Scott brought back and salvaged mecha from the battles in the Zone, along with persons with no ties to the rest of the world. You know, people who have no relatives left who want to serve in the REF, but have reservations about leaving Earth. All I would need are about a thousand men and women willing to live out their lives cut off from the rest of the world, as a last line of defense for an invasion that may never come. Think of it as insurance that if the worst happens, and the Southern Cross falls, there would still be someone left to fight, to avenge humanity. The technology of the installation is far in advance of our sensory systems, and we would be able to detect the enemy's movements, or keep tabs on earthly antagonists."

"How could I pull this off, Roy? Surely someone would notice the disappearance of personnel and equipment."

"Rick, Roy, I have an idea," Scott interrupted. "I'd been thinking of a similar plan, prior to finding out about Roy and Claudia. The earth-bound RDF could set up a similar base, say in Africa or part of the Middle East that the Soviets claim but have no use for, but have it more known about than Roy's base. Rick, you could then divert some men and supplies from the official base to the unofficial one. The base in the Middle East would be known as Fortress Gloval, and would serve the same purpose as the other, save that it would use contemporary technology. The personnel for both bases would be volunteers only, who would serve in the RDF for their entire lives. Both humans and Zentraedi would be eligible to serve in either base. The use of Zentraedi, especially in Roy's base, would simplify the problem of keeping the second base secret. As Zentraedi have no relatives and are generally snubbed by most non-RDF humans anyway, no one would notice if they disappeared from Terran society."

"This sounds like it could work, but we need to make more detailed plans before we can implement the idea. Is there some way we can get together tomorrow and work on it?"

"Pick a place, Rick, and I'm sure the five of us can get there." Roy seemed to be enjoying the discussion. "I just wish I could think of a good name for the base. `You-know-where' just doesn't work."

"How about Tisiphone?" Scott suggested.

"Tisiphone?"

"In Greek mythology, Tisiphone was one of the Furies, who avenged wrongs. In some of these stories, Tisiphone was labeled as the avenger of wrongs done by relatives. This seems appropriate, as the Masters and Zentraedi are our relatives genetically, and it was probably their ancestors who built the base."

"Not bad; let's just hope that the name's significance never comes to pass."

**Chapter Three:**

"Congo Sector, Africa(RPI) - The recent territorial expansion by the Eastern Bloc Soviet Independent State ran into trouble today when their forces were counter-attacked by a superior Malcontent force. It is estimated that the EBSIS forces have taken at least 50% casualties as of 1600 GMT today. Tonight, the EBSIS ambassador to the UEG Council is expected to ask for intervention by the RDF and ASC. The leaders of the Zentraedi that remain in the Arkansas Protectorate have pledged to support their African brothers should the UEG become involved, and they demand that the Soviets pull back to their pre-2017 borders with the Congo Sector. Despite pleas by Col. Rolf Emerson(ASC) and Breetai for peace talks. the council is expected to vote to abstain from both direct involvement in the conflict, and any role in mediating the dispute." - News report, 5 June 2018

"Miriya, Seloy is alive."

"Karen, She can't be. I saw her die, before you were even born."

"There were thousands there at the massacre. You probably saw someone who looked like her, possibly even a clone-sister. I have seen the future, the events of the next six months. If we are to change them, we must do it now."

"What did you see?"

"Deaths, thousands of people dead from a Zentraedi plague. A plague only we can prevent, by finding Seloy."

"Why is she so important?"

"Seloy is the leader of the Scavengers."

"She can't be."

"Why not? She always had more leadership potential than you. You were always too self-centered and vain to be anything but an ace within the Quadronos. All your battle plans centered around your glories, not on logic. You're still the better pilot, and have matured past those obsessions, but she has always been the better tactician. Regardless, we must get to Seloy, and stop this mad plan of the Malcontents before it causes total war. Are you coming with me?"

"Just let me leave a note for Max."

"No. No one must know where we've gone. I have already talked to Kayra, and she has agreed to take care of Dana until either we return, or Max returns from Little Luna. I told her what we are doing, but not how, when or why. She still doesn't know that I'm her daughter, and I want to keep it that way until we leave Earth on the SDF-3."

"Where is Seloy?"

"That I cannot be sure of; all I know is that she is somewhere in the Zone. I need you and your memories of her to close in on her. I bought an old junkheap from the Global War era, an F-14, and fixed it up for us to use one-way. When we do find her, we'll have to ditch it, and I can teleport us back here. Take Dana to Kayra's, then meet me upstairs in the POV hangar."

Four hours later, they were homing in on Seloy's location. They figured that they had found it when three Stingers burst from the jungle below, on an intercept course.

"Does this radio work?" Miriya asked.

"Yes, and it's set on the most popular Malcontent frequencies, although it only has a range of ten miles. It should be pretty secure."

"Attention Scavengers," Miriya said in Zentraedi over the radio. "This is Miriya Parino. My companion and I need to speak with Seloy Deperra."

"Why have you come here, traitor?"

"To warn you of coming danger. I am no traitor, but fight for both my peoples."

"Miriya," Karen called back on the intercom. "We bail out on three. One, two, now!"

Karen blew the canopy, waited for it to clear, then pulled the ejection bar, followed by Miriya. When they reached the ground, they found themselves surrounded.

"So, Miriya; it really is you," one of the women called to them.

"Seloy, why did you let me think you were dead?"

"It is a long story. Why have you come here?"

"Karen and I need to talk to you alone. It concerns our future."

"Karen, eh? You would bring an Earther here? For a second, I thought she might be one of us."

"I am one of you," Karen said in flawless Zentraedi. "At least, part of me is. It is a long story as well, and one I'd like kept unknown to most. I am the child of Kayra Marinoni; and her human mate. I know it sounds impossible, but it is true."

"Kayra returned? When I came here, she was reported to be lost in space."

"There was a fold accident. Mother saw many wondrous things where her trip had taken her. It was a side-effect of the manner of that trip that I was born the way I was, and grew into an adult so quickly."

"Interesting story. Too bad I don't believe it."

"Does this change your mind?" Karen disappeared, then reappeared with her arm around Seloy's neck from behind. "I'm sorry I had to prove it this way. I have seen the future; unless we change it, you and your group are doomed."

"Come with me to my home. You must tell me what you have seen and what can be done."

Seloy's home was an abandoned banana plantation, overgrown by the jungle in the years since the Zentraedi arrival here. They sat around in the main house's library for hours, discussing Karen's visions and the various Malcontent bands plans, especially the one plan Karen had foreseen - a biochemical weapon delivered by a selective vector.

"Seloy, your strategy is uncertain at best," Karen said. "The Zentraedi and Terrans are but subraces of the same species. Oh God... I see it in your mind, Seloy, how it will choose its targets. You have forgotten something in your haste, or else your underlings did not tell you."

"Tell me what? The plan is foolproof."

"Your robots sense Protoculture traces in the potential victims, right?"

"You are correct, as you should be."

"Have you forgotten that Dana, myself, and even YOUR SON have no such traces, as we were never cloned nor micronized? For all intents and purposes, we would be no different than any other native-born micronian."

"You are wrong!" Seloy shouted back; then it hit her. "But are you? There are many in the project who have prejudice against Hirano, and Dana as well. Those who feel that these half-humans are abominations. No, they wouldn't tell me such things, and probably take advantage of Hirano's death to try to oust me when the attacks begin. But what other choices are there to make? We can't continue on being hunted like animals."

"There is an alternative to war on Earth. In two years, the SDF-3 will leave Earth for Tyrol, and may have to face the Invid as well as the Masters. Those of you who still feel the call of the Imperative should join Miriya and me in that fight."

"My fight is here."

"Then, I'm sorry, Seloy. I've read your mind, so I know the locations of all the labs and factories. Within the next hour, you will find that the labs have been destroyed and the Stinger factories damaged by fires that started by themselves. I have but one last thing to offer you and your band, as well as any others that would join you. As you know, the Zentraedi were created by the Robotech Masters. But the Masters ancestors themselves came from this world ages ago. There is a place to the southwest, an underground complex belonging to that lost civilization. If you tire of war, there is a place for you there to live in peace, free of prejudice."

"And leave our people defenseless?"

"Those you can gather there will be far from defenseless. In fact, you will be allowed to keep your mecha. You will part of the planet's defenses; not against other Zentraedi, but against our common enemies, the Robotech Masters and the Invid. I know you don't want to be a slave of the Masters again; and even though my father's people are currently your sworn enemy, they are enough like you that you wouldn't want them to fight the Invid, don't deny it. Dana and I prove that we are one people. Don't deny our people the future."

"I'm sorry, but I can't do what you ask, at least not now. There will soon be war in the Congo Quadrant."

"The EBSIS invasion; I see," Miriya said.

"I'm afraid that was a consequence of last summer," Karen said remorsefully. " There is a human with an insane hatred of my father's family, Seloy. It was he, not Zentraedi, that crashed the derelict landing ship into Brasilia Base, to try to kill my family."

"What has that to do with the Soviets?" Seloy asked.

"Old Brasilia Base was the RDF and Southern Cross main base to patrol both continents of the Southlands, both this one and Africa. When it was destroyed, it left Africa unpatrolled for three months. The Soviets began their expansion under the guise of covering Africa, and have continued ever since. Now, the RDF has little to say about what happens in Africa. I almost feel responsible for what will happen. Seloy, stay here for a while; arm the African Zentraedi. But know that Miriya and I have our duty to the RDF, who will surely be dragged into the war on the Soviet's side. Please, when the fighting starts, go to Tisiphone, and leave the war behind. We don't want to have to fight you, but we will if we must. There is no need for the American Zentraedi to die fighting another man's war. It will be impossible to deliver Stingers across the ocean once the war begins, as well. The door will always be open for you."

"Miriya, do you believe I should do as Karen asks?"

"With all my heart. Karen, Kayra and I will try our best to stay out of the fight, but there can be no guarantees. I don't want to fight you, Seloy."

"Then, when the war begins, the Scavengers will be no more. Those who wish to continue the fight will move to Africa, and I will lead the rest to this 'Tisiphone'. How will I know where it is?"

"Here." Karen touched Seloy's forehead. "When then time comes, you will know."

Miriya and Seloy hugged, then Karen took Miriya by the hand and teleported them back to Brasilia.

From Rand's **History of Earth: 1995-2035**:

"The `Second Malcontent Uprising' was neither, as other historians have pointed out, mostly from the post-Uprising African Commonwealth. These historians had lived through some of it themselves, and strengthened their position (which conflicted the official ASC and EBSIS stories of the war) by going through RDF/REF records provided by Vulcan Division, along with what few ASC/UEG, EBSIS and RDF Congo Quadrant records survived the two invasions of the 2030s. The War was caused by human greed and bigotry, and over 60% of the Malcontents were actually Zentraedi who had chosen to move to the least-populated major continent to start communities independent of Terran humans. As for the other 40%, these were the true Malcontent bands that had been conducting guerrilla (some say terrorist) actions since the Bloody Summers of 2015-2016.

"There were many obvious effects of the Uprising. The main one was the elimination of most of the Malcontent bands, and the deaths of 80% of the remaining full-sized Zentraedi. Ironically, most of the latter were serving in the Soviet Red Army against their brethren. Less than fifty of the estimated ten thousand giants in the Red Army survived, and those defected to the REF in 2031. The Micronized ones fared somewhat better, but many mysteries surround the fate of some of them. Many Malcontent bands died, to a man; others, in the Western Hemisphere, declared their neutrality in the African conflict, only to be attacked by the ASC. Many of the survivors would later stand trial, but were freed as part of a plea-bargain authored by Exedore, Miriya Sterling and Kayra Freeman that had the accused cleared of their mostly false charges in exchange for their enlistment in the REF/SDF-3 mission. Many of the Zentraedi agreed to this only because there was a lingering hatred of the Masters by those who had been told the Zentraedi s true origins, and that there was the possibility of battle against their racial enemy, the Invid.

"One Malcontent clan, the most famous, just seemed to disappear off of the face of the Earth. Despite their large size (they are believed to have had at least 200 members, making them the largest single clan), only three Scavengers have ever admitted to being part of the group, and one of them was not discovered until just prior to the arrival of the Invid. As 70% of the Zentraedi population of Project Tisiphone (see next chapter) was female, and the Scavengers were almost all female, some have suggested that the band went there, as the highest ranking female there was an old friend of Miriya Sterling, and that friend was originally believed killed in the Zeetown Riots of 2015. However, Miriya still denies to this day that she knew of Tisiphone's existence prior to its evacuation in 2031, and all evidence backs up her statement.

"The period of 2015 to 2019 has sometimes been called `The Second Reign of Terror', referring to both the warfare and the bigotry. At Brasilia, Southern Cross forces incited this dark period in our history (as described last chapter, there is doubt that anyone ordered that unit's rogue actions), but it wasn't until 2018 that the xenophobe faction gained the upper hand in the UEG, just in time to drag it and the Southern Cross (which was more moderate in practice than reputation, outside South America) into the bloodshed. The RDF tried to stay out of it as long as possible, but the Malcontents themselves eventually forced it into the war as well. It has been theorized that Lazlo Zand had something to do with the events leading to UEG involvement in the conflict; most of the evidence comes from Zand's own writings, plus observations of four other people: then-Lt. Commander Scott Freeman, his wife, Marie Sterling Freeman, Karen Freeman, and General Rolf Emerson.

"That Zand had undergone a mind boost similar to Dr. Lang is common knowledge now, but back then it was only known by those in the Robotech Research Division. His quest for further power involved stealing the powers of Dana Sterling (he considered Karen/Noel Freeman too powerful, and never knew that Karen was the original Noel), but he could not attempt it while Emerson and Karen/Noel were in a position to stop him. By 2018, he was of the opinion that it would be best to wait until Dana's powers surfaced before stealing them (and her life force), and that the only way to make them surface was through a combination of exposure to Protoculture and combat. To insure the latter, he had to inflame the xenophobic tendencies in the Post-Khyron society, and to assume behind-the-scenes control of key UEG politicians in the faction that would be left in charge after the REF departed (as many of the moderate faction named themselves as ambassadors for the mission).

"The Uprising also slowed down the construction of the SDF-3, to the point that it wasn't completed until mid-2020. Note that both the alternate universes we contacted on the First Dreamweaver mission, that were temporally advanced past 2020, had completed their SDF-3's in the same week as ours, and arrived over Tyrol the same time as ours as well, despite the major differences in their events of 2016-2019. It's as if some things were pre-ordained. Also, due to the conflict, the actual wedding of Rick Hunter and Lisa Hayes was delayed until the day before the SDF-3 launch, just as in the other universes where Hunter had waited until 2019 to propose.

"The last major result of the Second Malcontent Uprising is actually an extension of Zand's obsession with Dana Sterling. The powers he had allowed him to cloud the minds of all those who knew of the alternate timeline visited by the Korra'ti; even Karen Freeman's, to a lesser extent. The fact that the Masters had already left Tyrol was forgotten, as well as the fact that the Invid would be there. All mention of the Invid, except those in his records, vanished, as well as the debriefing transcripts of the Korra'ti Incident. Lastly, he made it to where no more Human/Zentraedi crossbreeds or pure Zentraedi children could be born on Earth while he lived, with the exception of those born in Tisiphone Base, as he had no knowledge of the base's existence.

**Chapter Four:**

"Am I cursed with this guy, or what? How many times does he have to die before we re rid of him?" - Attributed to Scott Freeman; Tyrol, 2027.

It was November 2020, and the Second Malcontent Uprising was history. Scott was tired of combat; he and many others, such as Vince Grant, had known the hypocrisy of the `Uprising', but were powerless to stop it.

Now, an old enemy had reappeared - not publicly, but for the first time since 2017, T.R. Edwards had shown his hand. Edwards was running some kind of operation at the new non-military moon base under construction; the ALUCE chemical station. It was decided that Scott and Marie would be the best personnel to go after him. Actually, Scott was picked because of his childhood at the original Moon base, and then he picked his wife due to her Beta experience.

Scott had chosen to use the Legios for the trip because of its high speed. What would be a three-day journey for normal Veritechs would only be a bearable 1.5 days in a Legios, comparable to the Lindbergh's legendary flight across the Atlantic. But then, "Lucky Lindy" didn't have the luxuries of an autopilot, navigation computers and radar to help him in his flight. One of the advantages to the Legios was that he could pose as one of Lang's test pilots, who were finishing up the Beta and Legios test flights at the time, one month before the SDF-3 launch. Marie was to stay in the Beta, where she could remain undetected and fairly comfortable, with the added luxuries of a zero-G porta-potty and a place to sleep. She also had her Cyclone, in order to be Scott~s backup in case of trouble. Scott himself was wearing his CVR-3 as a spacesuit, as well as armor. After all, there was yet to be constructed on this Earth a hand-held weapon that could inflict more than minor damage to it.

After an uneventful flight, Scott asked for and received landing instructions from ALUCE, identifying himself as Lieutenant Lincoln Isle. As soon as he landed, he got directions to the nearest men's room and proved why they used to call him "Freeway Freeman" at the Academy, as it had been 36 hours since he had used the rest room (other than a relief tube) and it wouldn't wait much longer. After relieving himself, he made his way to where Edwards was supposed to have his office. Adjusting his helmet under his arm, he approached the door. Before he could knock, the door slid open.

"Come in, Mr. Freeman. I've been expecting you." Scott instantly recognized the voice that he had last heard in 2016. It was Edwards, all right. Edwards was in a desk chair, facing away from the door.

"Hello, T.R. I guess you know why I'm here."

"I do. You've fallen right into my trap." Edwards spun around, aiming a laser rifle at Scott. "First you, then your pretty little wife and sister back on Earth, and finally the Hunters, on their honeymoon." Edwards pumped a burst of shots into Scott's chest.

"Good try, Edwards; now it's my turn." Scott pulled his Gallant, making a mental note to thank the other universe's Emil Lang, if ever they should meet again, for making the CVR laser-resistant. He shot the pistol at the surprised Edwards, but the latter quickly ducked under his desk and through a trap door, which he shut behind him. Scott felt his ears pop, and quickly pulled on his helmet and sealed the suit. Depressurizing the room; cute. "Marie, now would be a good time," Scott said into his suit radio, doing his best Walter Koenig impression.

"On my way, loverboy," she called back. Back in the Beta, she hit the trouble beacon to alert the RDF Space Patrol and SC Cosmic Unit Troops who were waiting to come in to pacify the base, then hit the hatch release on the Beta. She roared out of the bomb bay like a bat out of hell, transforming into Battloid as soon as she was clear and following the tracer in Scott's suit.

Meanwhile, Scott hooked the rifle attachment to his Gallant, then blew open the trap door to Edwards' bolt hole. He followed the corridor to a large room, where he suddenly found himself facing Edwards, who was at the controls of a Guardian-mode Logan Veritech.

"We meet again, Freeman. At least this time, I'm the one who gets to use overkill." Edwards opened fire with his EU-20, but Scott was barely able to keep one step ahead of Edwards' shots.

"Get away from him, you rowboat with wings!" Marie shouted, firing her EP-37 at Edwards' Logan.

"So, she's here too, Freeman. The loving couple dies together, just as their commanders will." He sent a spray of shots at Marie, one of them connecting and sending her skittering back into the hallway.

"NO!" Scott ran to Marie's side, where she staggered back to her feet, disengaging the Cyclone.

"Scott, I'm okay; just shaken a little. Hop on; we need to put some distance between us and him." They raced down the corridor, only to find it sealed around the first turn.

"Freeman, show your cowardly little face, you Zentraedi-lover!"

"Look who's calling a Zentraedi-lover, ZENTRAEDI!" Scott taunted back.

"I'll get you for that, Freeman!" Edwards screamed as he rounded the corner, only to find Marie in Battloid with her EP-37, and Scott shoulder-firing Marie's RL-6. Edwards screamed as the mini-missiles and energy blasts holed the Logan, then all fell quiet.

"You haven't won yet, Freeman," the dying Edwards gasped as he hit the mecha self-destruct, the resulting explosion slamming both Scott and Marie into the blast wall and unconsciousness.

"Where am I?"

"Little Luna Medical Facility. Your wife's been worried sick about you. You were unconscious for three days."

"Did we get him?"

"Who... oh, you mean the guy in the Logan. There was barely anything left to identify him."

"Did anyone get cell samples of him?"

"Only the forensics people, and they turned them over unopened to Jean Grant. She destroyed them after she was through with them, and the corridor was depressurized to help in the cleanup, so you don't have to worry about anyone cloning him again. Jean explained your problem with him."

"Thank God. That's one less assassination plot against the Admirals to have to worry about."

"I hear you might get promoted to full commander for this; at the rate you're going, you'll replace Admiral Hunter in no time."

"I'll settle for universal peace and early retirement."

"Wouldn't we all, Commander; wouldn't we all."

**Chapter Five:**

"Finally, the Wedding Day came, followed shortly thereafter by the start of the mission. All of us at the wedding realized that there was a good chance that, if things went wrong on the mission, half of us would probably be dead. What we didn't realize is that it would be the half from the Southern Cross and UEG." - Admiral Richard Hunter(REF, Ret.), interview for special "Protocultures: Macross +60"; 9/2/59

Scott and Marie never had a chance to return to Earth, as the rest of Skull, including Highlander, came up to the Factory Satellite on the day Scott was released from the hospital. All their belongings had been packed and brought up by Karen, so they didn't have to worry about leaving anything behind accidentally. Conspicuously absent were the six people who had been Gladiator pilots on the Korra'ti; they were on their way to Saudi Arabia, to be the command staff of Fortress Gloval.

There were a few other downers as well. The death of the Edwards-clone had allowed the UEG an Southern Cross to stick their noses where they weren't wanted. As a result, the 1st TASC, a.k.a. Ghost Squadron, was to be sent as the ASC representative on the SDF-3. Also, almost all personnel were be familiarized with the new REF mecha in what little time remained before launch. The old-style mecha were to be relegated to being reserve mecha. Most of the pilots, whether regular REF or TASC, weren't exactly thrilled with the idea of going into a potential combat situation in unfamiliar mecha, although the Destroid jockeys weren't complaining much, as their new mecha were a lot simpler than the old types. Then there was the matter of the Academy-trained personnel. As none of them had yet to be given a permanent assignment, their training consisted of a little bit of everything, from VTs to Destroids to starship combat, resulting a group that was decent in a lot of things, but good for nothing except as infantry. It was thought that the group commanders could study the ensigns in simulator training and determine the best field for each, and their final training would proceed from there.

The Wolfe Pack had one major advantage over Skull, Ghost, Diamondback, Joker and Black Angel squadrons: They had been using their mecha for quite some time. They had been the test pilots for the Logan in 2016 and had evaluated the Veritech Hovertank for REF use in 2018, as well as combat-testing the Alphas in 2019, at the tail end of the Malcontent wars. It had been on Wolfe's insistence that the former two mecha, originally slated for ASC use only, were included in the SDF-3's mecha complement as well. It was his opinion that the VHT outclassed all of the close-combat Destroids(both versions of the Excaliber and Gladiator), and the Logan was well suited for recon work, due to its small size and high speed. However, the only training anyone had on the Betas was normal flight training and simulator time, as the real thing had yet to be tested as a mecha separate from the its use as the rear part of a Legios. The only two people with actual Beta experience were Janet and Marie Freeman.

This was evident in the first real flights of the first production models. After a week of solo flights, two were chosen to pilot the Betas in the linkup tests. Of course, Janet and Marie were the ones picked. Surprisingly enough, Max chose to pilot one of the Alphas, and an ensign fresh out of the Academy, Karen Penn, was chosen to pilot the other. The original plan called for unmanned Betas, until someone pointed out that a mistake in the test could result in the Betas falling into the atmosphere and burning up, and there weren't enough Betas to risk that. This way, if something went wrong, the pilot on board each Beta could save the mecha by flying it back in. Besides, having all four mecha piloted would make the test more realistic. The test was partly successful, but caused a bit of a scare when Penn's Alpha malfunctioned, and the other three mecha had to go to her rescue.

The day before the wedding found Scott, Max and Rick having lunch in Ten-Forward, discussing the strange memory lapses that had affected them sometime in the last two years.

"Rick, Max, this is really strange. I used to know so much about what the REF of the other universe ran into out there. Now, all I can remember is that our Kayra was exposed to Garuda's atmosphere, the REF controlled Tyrol, and things about Janice Em and one other person I swore not to reveal to anyone until it is important to do so. Everything else is blank; even our computers have been erased of the data we had brought back. I don't like it."

"Are you sure everything has been erased?" Rick was hesitant to think that ALL of Earth's computers had been compromised that badly.

"Everything; even our memories are gone. All of us in my squad, the crew of the Korra'ti, Maria Logan's group. Even Dr. Lang wasn't immune. Everything that could have given us an edge on the mission is gone, even the printed transcripts of our debriefing."

"Could Edwards have done this?" Max suggested, grasping at straws to explain it.

"No, he couldn't have affected memories. I only know of one person who can, and she was affected along with the rest of us. Karen's mad as hell that someone could do her that way.

"Perhaps it was that mystery ally of Edwards; the one who had him cloned."

"Possibly, Max, but we're no closer to finding him than we were three years ago."

"All I know, guys, is that I'm sure that this guy isn't going with us. Why else would he sabotage the mission? As for him on Earth, I've heard through the grapevine that he's too scared of Noel to try anything against the girls again." Scott chuckled after Rick said the last part.

"Excuse me, Admiral." They looked up to see Colonel Benson, the recently-appointed commander of Ghost Squadron, standing at the end of the table. Benson had been promoted just for this mission, as Colonel Adams, the senior member of Ghost, was known to be a close friend of Edwards.

"What is it you want, Benson?" Rick half-snarled. He found it hard to talk to anyone from Ghost, considering the actions of its most infamous leader.

"I just wanted to say good luck to you on your upcoming wedding, on behalf of my squadron," Benson replied, sounding almost hurt in a phoney sort of way.

"Oh. Thank you, Colonel." Rick was stunned.

"I thought I'd stop by and give my regards, as somehow my men were overlooked by you in the invitations."

"I'm sorry, Colonel. I wasn't aware that any of your squadron wanted to attend. You and your men may attend, if you wish."

"Thank you, Admiral, but I'll be on bridge duty during the wedding. My aide, Major Riley, will lead Ghost's contingent at the ceremony." He saluted, then turned and left the lounge.

"Rick, was I seeing things or did I just see a Ghost Rider acting human?" Max asked.

"I don't know; it seems too good to be true. Benson never struck me as the command type. He sure has changed since his promotion."

"I just hope the change is for the better," Scott added.

The bachelor party for Rick that night was the wildest ever held in space (topping Max s, which was the only other one held in space, to anyone's knowledge). One of the "lowlights" of the evening was when Shannon Freeman and Jack Baker led a fearless group of a dozen men on a panty raid in the Zentraedi quarters - the FULL-SIZE Zentraedi quarters! It took both Breetai and Rick to stop the rampaging naked female Zentraedi whose underclothing was stolen from stomping the hapless Shannon into a red spot on the deck. Rick finally went to his cabin around 0100, although the party continued until 0530 without him.

The wedding went off without a hitch, unless you count Noel, Dana and Bowie's impromptu game of tag in the aisles, which Karen put an end to with a subconscious telepathic command. At the reception, she walked around, taking in the sights. She had sung 'Together" with Minmei and Janice immediately after the vows, but had separated herself from them once things became informal. One of the things she had noticed right away was the amount of attention that Jon Wolfe, "Lincoln Isle"(she knew better) and Major Riley were giving to Minmei, but she let it slide. After all, all three of them would soon be far away from the object of their attention. She then saw Karen Penn being introduced to Lazlo Zand, and the latter seemed to give both Karens the creeps just by his presence. Karen Freeman then realized that Zand was the one responsible for all the problems her family had, but couldn't do anything without jeopardizing all she had worked for. She was relieved when Jack Baker broke the tension in the Lang party. Finally, she saw Marie signalling her.

"Are they ready, Marie?"

"They're waiting in the next room. Are you up to it?"

"Yes, I am." They went into the next room, where Rico, Bron and Konda were waiting.

"Hi, guys. Long time, no see."

"Hi, Karen;" Rico replied. "I guess you won't be helping babysit the girls anymore.

"You won't be babysitting them much longer yourself, as you well know. We know you're ill."

"Oh."

"Marie and I have something to tell you. You see, I used to be Noel, until something strange happened, and I grew into an adult when I was a half-year old." The three found it hard to believe, but not as hard as Scott or Max. "I then made a clone of myself for my parents, the Noel you have helped raise."

"Then she got lonely, and created me, by cloning Dana," Marie added.

"Dana?" The three Zentraedi said at once.

"I love you three too much to see you die like this," Marie said, tears in her eyes as she hugged them. "I have a way of saving you, but it means that you won't be able to be with Dana and Noel for a long time. Please say you'll let me save you."

"I don't know," Rico said. "What about the girls' education?"

"Don't worry about them. They'll be fine without you; you've already made sure of that. Besides, my little sister is far from defenseless," Karen answered.

"If you say so."

"Hold on to me, and close your eyes." They did so, and there was a momentary sense of weightlessness as she teleported them. "Open your eyes now."

They were now in what appeared to be the Protoculture chamber room of a Zentraedi Scout Ship, although there appeared to be numerous modifications, such as the three human-sized ones at the base of the main one.

"Take off your clothes, and step into the tubes. Don't worry about embarrassing us; Marie's married and I'm beyond that sort of thing." The Zentraedi did as they were told, and the tubes filled with blue-green fluid. Minutes later, they stepped from the tubes, now physically younger than they had been during their misadventures aboard the SDF-1.

"Here you go, guys," Karen said, handing them towels, then their new uniforms. "Get dressed. We want to introduce you to your new coworkers."

"With our luck, they're probably some old Quadrono battleaxes with the looks of Dolza and the disposition of Khyron," Bron mused.

"Actually, they're worse," Marie told them.

"Worse?" the three said in unison, a look of horror on their faces.

"Here they are!" Karen shouted, opening the curtains to an adjoining area. The Zentraedi's fears turned to tears as the were reunited with the "Terrible Trio" of Sammy, Kim and Vanessa. After a short round of hugs and kisses, they hugged their benefactors.

"How can we ever thank you?"

Remember us, and protect this world;" Karen said, then had a gut feeling about the future. "Protect this world from the Invid. Noel and Dana will take care of the Masters for you. Just don't try anything suicidal. Marie and I must go now; remember that the four of us love you."

Karen and Marie joined hands, then faded away in a sparkling light.

**Chapter Six:**

"Sometimes I want to stop struggling against the tide of the Shapings, and let them take their course. But I know that if I do, then my life will have been for nothing. The hardest part of what I must do is to let the Adversary have his way sometimes, in order to make my own changes meaningful. For my mission in life to succeed, my short-term changes have to be limited so that their aftereffects don't result until I want them to. For this to happen, I have to keep this timeline as close as I can to the other, even though that becomes more difficult each time I intervene. A lesser person would have already given up."

- From the diary of Karen (Ellison) Freeman, 7/9/20

It was 0600 on the morning of the launch. Almost everyone was either making or receiving last-minute calls between the Factory Satellite and Earth. Karen was no exception, except her call wasn't exactly personal.

"Maria, are you sure your end is secure?"

"Definite; this new equipment you gave us is great. Nita says she's never seen anything like it."

"I have a few things to tell you personally, now that you're officially the Commander of Fortress Gloval. The first is that the Noel Freeman you know is actually a clone of me. I was the original Noel, but I literally got too big for my britches ."

"I thought I noticed a change in her... er, you, whatever, after the kidnapping."

"You're not surprised?"

"Girl, I saw you walk into dead-end halls and not come out too many times to be surprised by anything about you. I knew you were extraordinary, I just didn't know how you got that way. After spending some time with the Garudans crosstime, I can comprehend where you got your powers. Have you told anyone else?"

"Just the Hunters, Sterlings, Jean Grant, Scott and Marie. In fact, I created Marie by cloning Dana Sterling. You should have seen the looks on Scott and Jean's faces when they found out a month later."

"Now I know why Scott was acting so strangely back then. Poor boy, in love with his commander's five-year-old!"

"Rick and Lisa had to be told, due to Scott and Jean's investigation. Scott and Marie didn't tell Max and Miriya until you put some sense in his head that Christmas."

"How did the parents of the bride react?"

"Miriya was overjoyed, but Max almost killed Scott before they were able to explain to him that Scott wasn't involved in the creation of Marie."

"What were the other things you needed to tell me? It's almost lunch time here."

"You must remember to keep everything I tell you under wraps, especially from the Southern Cross and UEG. Definitely don't let Lazlo Zand find out about me and Marie. Also, only you and the top few persons in your RDF chain of command below you need to know about this last thing, so don't bring it up with anyone until such time as it is needed."

"What if something happens to me before I can pass it on?"

"Good point. Place a copy of what I tell you now into your contingency plans, to be opened only if one of the Hydra protocols is in effect. You have a sister installation in Zone Z, one that is only known about by a handful in the REF; namely, myself, Scott, Marie, Dr. Lang and Rick Hunter."

"You're on a first-name basis with Admiral Hunter?"

"Well, he is one of my godfathers, along with Scott and Max. Besides, like most of us who used to be enlisted personnel, he hates fooling around with rank when off-duty."

"Speaking of which, what is your rank now? Marie got promoted when she got married, but you stayed NCO. How come?"

"I never really cared for rank, Maria, but Rick forced a commission on me last week. I'm now a J.G., or 2nd Lieutenant, according to the old system. At least I didn't have to start off as a 3rd luey-slash-ensign.

"How would I contact this base, and under what conditions?"

"Its name is Tisiphone Base, and you can contact it using this equipment only, whenever you like. This gear also feeds them all the information that comes in to you from outside, including what the REF transmits to Earth. You have the sole receiving station on Earth, and will have to act as a relay between the UEG and the mission.

"What frequency do I use to contact Tisiphone?"

"Sierra-Oscar-Sierra."

"SOS? Cute, Karen."

"You will only be able to receive audio from them until the Robotech Masters arrive. At that time you will receive video as well."

"WHEN the Masters show up? Don't you mean IF?"

"Unfortunately, no. The Masters left Tyrol seven years ago.

"Then why don't you stop the mission?"

"If I do, then it will mean death for all of us, including the Masters, from another enemy. It is the Invid that the REF must fight at Tyrol. If only you could remember more of what happened in the other universe."

"Almost everything is a blank. Did YOU ever find out who did this to our minds?"

"It was Zand; that's why you must always keep your guard up against him and his allies in the UEG."

"I understand now. Will you ever return?"

"Possibly, after the Invid are defeated. However, that will take so long that the problem with the Masters here on Earth will probably be over by then. The Invid have split into two factions; your orders are to sit out of any conflict with the Masters, then ally yourself with the winner in the event that the Invid come to Earth in search of the Masters. Guard the Earth well for us, Maria."

Karen signed off, leaving a worried Maria Perez Logan staring at a blank screen, her burden doubled by this last message from her friends that were leaving Earth.

Karen spent the rest of the morning say goodbyes to her research colleagues that weren't going with the REF, then went over to the temporary quarters, to help send off Dana, Noel and Bowie. The three families plus Karen walked together to the shuttle lounge, where they were met by Rolf Emerson, who was to take care of the children while the mission was gone. As the other adults were saying their goodbyes to Rolf, Karen managed to separate Noel from the group for a short time.

"Noel?"

"Yes, Aunt Karen?"

"I want you to know that you are the key. One day, I will send you a present. With it, you can change the world."

"Will I ever see you again?"

"Every time you look into a mirror, think of me, Noel. I think we will meet again, but I cannot be sure. Take care of yourself, and protect Dana and Bowie for me." Karen kissed her clone-sister on the forehead. "One day, the sleeper will awaken." Noel's eyes seemed to glaze for a moment, then returned to normal. Karen then returned Noel to their parents.

"We're going to have a good time, Bowie," Rolf said to his godson. "You just wait and see.

"You take good care of him, Rolf," Vince said with a solemn look on his face.

"You know I will."

Just then, Zand walked by, on the way to his own shuttle. Instinctively, Emerson hugged the children to him, and both he and Karen gave Zand looks like they were looking at Satan himself.

"Ensign Baker, there's someone here to see you."

"Tell them I'm not in the mood!" Jack snapped, upset over his assignment to the GMU.

"Is that any way to talk to a superior officer, Baker?" Karen said authoritatively.

Jack jumped up, and saluted. The last thing he expected was an officer, a famous one at that.

"Calm down, Ensign Baker. Can I call you Jack?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good, and you can call me Lieutenant, or Karen; whichever you feel more comfortable with." Her eye roamed to a poster above Baker's desk, a life-size cheesecake number she had done as a record promotion. "I see you're familiar with my singing career."

"Uhh... What did you want to see me about, Lieutenant?" Jack asked, quickly changing the subject.

"I thought I might explain the reasons behind your assignment as you walk down to the GMU."

"Could it be that Admiral Hunter hates me?" he asked as he took down the poster, the last thing he had to do before leaving the room, and sticking it into his personal bag.

"No. He likes you, actually. It's just that you remind him to much of another young pilot of days gone by. Let me tell you a story about the SDF-1 as we go. Come on." She led him out the door.

"Go ahead; my day can't get any worse."

"You see, one upon a time, there was this hotshot young pilot who came to the SDF-1 launch ceremony, and stole the air show by flying into the group of stunt VTs and making their military pilots look like amateurs. This made the friend who had invited him extremely mad, as the friend was also the master of ceremonies of the air show. The tables were turned, however, when this hotshot was accidentally ordered into the air in a Veritech by a capable, but inexperienced, bridge officer aboard the SDF-1. He got knocked out of the sky, taking out several buildings as he came down in Guardian, then demolishing a few more while trying to operate it in Battloid mode.

"Eventually, he was rescued by his friend, who quickly taught him the basics of VT operation. The friend put him in charge of evacuating a young girl whose bedroom he had demolished with his Battloid's face. He got shot down again, but the only damage this time was to the VT and the Pod it had crashed into while landing. So, his friend had to come to the rescue again, removing the totaled VT's cockpit from the wreckage and using the old rescue maneuver Bravo. "

"Bravo; that was carrying a Valkyrie cockpit in place of a GU."

"I see your cramming paid off, Jack. The friend flew them up to the SDF-1, then dropped them off in a storage hanger with the hotshot's stunt plane, under orders to stay put until the battle was over. By this time, the SDF-1 had completed one orbit of the Earth and was dropping back down toward Macross. When the young girl heard that they were heading back down, the hotshot took it upon himself to fly her home, not knowing that the ship was preparing to fold. As his stunt plane was STOL capable, and would have plenty of momentum from the ship's reentry, he thought he could pull it off. It would have worked, too, had not the SDF-1 folded before he was a thousand meters away from the ship, taking them and the island to the other side of Pluto.

"Only by his quick thinking, and quite a bit of luck, he was able to get back to the ship using his plane's booster rockets. Unfortunately, there was no way in, until a crashing pod somehow holed the SDF-1, and he flew his plane into the hole. me two were trapped in a long-forgotten cargo area for two weeks, before a piece of equipment from the reconstruction of Macross fell from the ceiling of the city hold and made a hole down to where they were. "

"I recognize the last part. So, it was Admiral Hunter who was such a brat, and the girl was Minmei."

"And Roy Fokker was the exasperated friend. But do You know who the bridge officer was?"

"Was it one of the girls who befriended the Zentraedi defectors?"

"No; it was then-Lieutenant Commander Lisa Hayes. Hardly an auspicious beginning for a relationship, especially after the 19-year-old Rick called the 24-year-old Lisa an "Old Sourpuss". But what I'm getting at is that Rick sees a lot of himself in you, Jack. He s trying to help you in the same ways that Roy helped him. By assigning you to the GMU, he's hoping that Vince Grant can teach you discipline, and that you'll live long to learn it. Do you understand now?"

"I guess so, But I was trained to be a pilot. Why the GMU? Couldn't Vince help me on the side?"

"No, he couldn't. It will take the full attention of Vince to straighten you out, or at least, make a start of it. Besides, it won't be too bad being aboard the GMU." They entered the huge hold that held the Ground Mobile Unit. "For example, you're not the only ensign on detached duty under Grant. Go get her, Jack; I have to run. Dos Veydanya." She slapped him on the back, then took off running back down the hall.

It was then that Jack noticed that Karen Penn was also assigned to the GMU. Maybe Admiral Hunter wasn't such a bad guy after all.

Meanwhile, Karen Ellison Freeman was making all due haste for the Robotech R&D area, muttering to herself. "Oh God, she's gonna do it again! Didn't she learn anything eleven years ago?"


	5. Book Two, Part Five

**Robotech: The Freeman Chronicles**

**Book Two: Nothing Ever Goes as Planned**

**By: Stanley Bundy**

I dedicate this book of R:TFC to the following:

The band Styx: The band could really rock, yet at the same time produce other songs on the same albums that touched the soul. Songs such as "Crystal Ball" and "Show Me the Way" had a huge influence on how Karen evolved as a character, while other songs such as "Renegade" and "Not Dead Yet" inspired my players to new highs in lowdown plotting against their GM (which was what I expected from them). I just wish the current members could realize that 90% of what made the band great was the interplay between the songs led by Dennis and those by Tommy & JY. While the band could function without Tommy or JY for a while (ironically, he effectively was in a Dennis role to Ted Nugent as JY analogue in Damn Yankees at the time), they can't without Dennis. JY apparently forgets that while their early proto-metal stuff had a club following, it was Dennis' music that got the band on the charts and kept them there, and now they are reduced to playing town & county fairs in places with 4-digit populations without him;

Miles Yount, the player of our hapless hero Scott Freeman, who was my only player at the time I ran the Sentinels, due to the others either moving or living on-campus. We played the entire Sentinels campaign in 24 hours (straight), with no dice; Pure role-playing at its finest;

and my parents, who are clueless as ever about my video hobby.

_**'Cause**_

_**Nothing ever goes as planned**_

_**It's a hell of a notion**_

_**Even Pharaohs turn to sand**_

_**Like a drop in the ocean**_

_**You're so together and you act so civilized**_

_**But every time that things go wrong you're still surprised**_

_**You've done your duty and paid a fortune in dues**_

_**Still got those Mother Nature's Blues**_

- Styx; "Nothing Ever Goes As Planned";1980, from the album "Paradise Theater"

**Part Five: The Grand Illusion**

**Chapter One:**

"It seems obvious, now, that Minmei had to go on the mission. All the Robotech Wars had a musician as a key figure, and those Terrans who weren't Minmei (Bowie Grant, The Tylers, and Lance R. "Yellow Dancer" Belmont) were all heavily influenced by her music. It's almost as if the motivating force behind Protoculture was Minmei's biggest fan."

- from The Muse of Earth: A Biography of Lynn-Minmei, by Corinne Johnson

**Departure -10 minutes (3 November 2020)**

Karen reached Isle's room as the SDF-3 pulled clear of the Factory Satellite. She pounded on the door, hoping that the lieutenant was still in his quarters instead of watching their departure from one of the viewports.

"Linc, open up! It's an emergency!"

"What is it, Karen?" Isle was not pleased to see her, as Karen was a friend of the person he joined this mission to leave behind. It was bad enough that he had to serve with Karen off-and-on for these last three years. "I want to be alone right now."

Karen pushed her way into the room, dragging him from the door and shutting it. "We've got a problem."

"What are you talking about?"

"Cut the act, Kyle," she said, staring him down. "That's right, I know who you are; I've always known."

"How? Did Lang -"

"No; I found out during those Cyclone tests. It's hard to keep secrets from a telepath."

"A telepath? No wonder an ace pilot would spend so much time with Lang. Some of the guys thought you were lovers."

"Not even close; he's not my type."

"What's so important that you disturbed me, anyway?"

"Minmei's being immature again, and she's talked Janice into coming with her on a hare-brained attempt to go along with the SDF-3 to Tyrol. They're in an EVA pod, tailing behind the SDF-3 within the fold envelope."

"Can't she leave the Admirals alone? It's bad enough that Rick's uncertainty over his feelings for her kept him and Lisa apart for so long back in Macross. Now she wants to tag along on the honeymoon! We could be folding into a war zone, for all we know!"

"No; we WILL be folding into a war zone, and the enemy won't be the Masters or the Zentraedi. I can't tell you how I know, but I'm sure you can figure it out. What I can tell you, as I know you won't repeat it because I can expose you too, is that my family has already been to Tyrol, or at least the Tyrol of an alternate universe, due to a fold accident. The Masters left Tyrol before Khyron attacked Macross; instead, the Zentraedi's arch enemy, the Invid will be waiting for us."

"Why are you telling me all this?"

"Because we're going to have to go out and get our two hitchhikers and bring them aboard once the fold ends."

"Why don't we just tell the bridge and delay the fold, and have the CU pick them up?"

"We can't. A delay on this end could cost the two most important people left on Tyrol their lives. As it is, we'll barely have time to get to the hangar before the fold starts."

"We?"

"If we're going to have a chance to recover the vehicle, we're going to have to take a Legios. In fact, we'll have to use the new Beta-plus-Battloid configuration in order to be able to bring them in at a speed fast enough to catch up to the SDF-3."

"B&B mode? You're crazy! It hasn't even been tested yet!"

"I know; but it's our only chance, Now let's do it!"

"And which are you going to pilot?"

"The Beta. After all, you don't have full qualification on the Beta yet. Now quit squawking!" Karen grabbed Kyle's arm, and dragged him out of the room and down the corridor.

"Well, Rick, we're on our way."

"Yeah. There's something I faintly remember you telling me about Tyrol, though. Something about the Masters, but I can't remember what, though."

"I know. We've been over it a million times. Why can't we remember? There's lots of things just barely on the edge, involving Minmei, Janice, Jon Wolfe, Max and Miriya, not to mention you and Lisa."

"Minmei and Janice shouldn't be a problem here, Scott, Dr. Lang made sure of that for us."

"Admiral," a tech called out. "Lieutenants Ellison and Isle are requesting for a Veritech launch immediately after fold, designation HL-004."

"What? Do you know what your niece is up to?"

"No. But for some reason I feel I should though."

"Hold them. I'll decide when the fold is complete."

"Fold in ten seconds, sir ... An EVA ship just entered the fold sphere, Admiral and it's too late to cancel fold!"

"Rick, it's Minmei! I remember now!"

"Damn! Highlander-4 launch authorized!" Rick called out, as the SDF-3 began its fold.

From **Looking Back, Sentimentally**, by Janice Em (2036, New Denver Press).

"The SDF-3 fold system was experimental, at best. Previous fold systems that Earth had experience with would have time outside the fold passing much faster than time inside the fold envelope, and this was no exception. For example, Rick, Lisa, Max and Ben missed much of Minmei's rise to stardom during the fold to Dolza's fleet and back. That adventure seemed as only a day or so to them, yet three months passed for the SDF-1 and Earth. Likewise, the two-day mission on Breetai's ship to capture the Factory Satellite departed in the summer heat of August, but returned in early October.

With the SDF-3's rebuilt engines, taken from that flagship during its scrapping to build the ASC and RDF solar system defensive fleets, Dr. Lang's engineering team tried to put the information learned from Zor's SDF-1 computer to use. The trip to Tyrol, without rebuilding the engines, would have taken over a month for the passengers, and over ten years for the rest of the universe. With the engines rebuilt to original specifications, the trip would have taken about two weeks relative, and two years actual. However, using the theoretical data from EVE, which had apparently been used by EVE to put a decade of distance between the SDF-1 and its Zentraedi pursuit, it was possible to reduce these times even further, especially the time experienced inside the fold. Based on that reconstructed data, the SDF-3 fold to Tyrol would seem to be no more than a few hours, and be only a year "real" time. There was just one problem...

Zor meant for the data to be used and acquired through EVE directly, which was being used in a different project in Japan. Emile thought that he could use me to interpret the data, not knowing that any attempt to remotely use EVE's high-end data was deliberately encoded to introduce errors, to prevent any duplicates of EVE's database from being co-opted through the Masters' computers, if copied. I was originally but a remote copy of her before he altered me to be fully autonomous; I could only provide the correct information if EVE herself was controlling me, but that function had been removed.

Of course, Minmei and I weren't supposed to be part of that great mission, but fate has a way of working things out, I guess. I just wish that people would stop buying into those absurd rumors that our presence in the fold sphere is what threw off the fold computations. After all, the mass of the craft we were in was only 0.001% of the tolerances built into the fold system design for accurate folding. It would have taken something the size of the _**Tristar**_ entering the foldsphere to have caused a misfold; the simple truth is that dear Emile did not catch that the vital formula altered by the safeguards was changed from being exponential, instead of logarithmic as in the original data, and the test bed used for the experiments had its performance attributes lie near where the two curves (correct and incorrect) intersected.

One little error, and in its own way it cost hundreds of thousands of lives, but saved even more. For, if the REF been present on Tyrol for the Invid arrival, the mission would have most certainly been destroyed. If the REF had arrived on schedule, then returned to Earth after finding the Masters gone, instead of staying to aid the Tyroleans, the Invid would have followed them back to an unprepared Earth by the end of 2025. Instead, REF forces arrived seven Tyrolean months after the invasion, and faced only a protective garrison and the Inorganics, instead of the majority of the Regent's fleet.

Then again, I'm just glad for Minmei's sake that the only part of the fold formula thrown off by that data manipulation was the universal transit time, and that the transit time inside the fold was the same as calculated, otherwise I would have suffered watching my friend die from asphyxiation."

**Chapter Two:**

"Of course we all expected that we would probably have to fight once we got to Tyrol. What we weren't expecting was having to save Tyrol itself from invasion."

-Admiral Richard Hunter from pre-recorded message sent with Major Carpenter to Earth.

**Arrival +1 minute (date unknown)**

"We've got company, Lisa," Rick called from the tactical display.

"Do we have a signature?"

"Negative."

"I think I remember, Admirals," Scott said. "The other Scott told me that when their REF arrived at Tyrol, the planet had been conquered by the Invid."

"So those are the Invid?"

"I'm pretty sure. I wish I could strangle whoever it was that screwed with my mind!"

"Can you remember anything else about the Invid?"

"No; Breetai and Exedore would know, though."

"Thanks, Scott. Mr. Blake!" Lisa called to one of her subordinates on the other end. "Get Breetai and Exedore up here, A.S.A.P.! And get me some visuals of those craft!" The screen went blank.

"Scott, how could the Masters be defeated so easily? Everything the Zentraedi told us about them made them seem almost omnipotent."

"For one thing, Admiral, the Zentraedi were brainwashed into thinking that in order to keep the slave race from revolting."

"And another thing," Marie interrupted. "The Masters, at least 90% of them, are on their way to Earth. They probably left in 2014, after contact with Khyron was lost in December."

"What? How do you know this?"

"I overheard one of Karen's dream-trances over three years ago, but it didn't make any sense until now. It was a poem, of sorts. Remember our discovery in the Zone?"

"Yes, the language there was a sort of proto-Zentraedi and we thought that it may have been related to the Masters."

"Right, and the vision proved it. She said -

'in their efforts to forget their woes,

The children of Tyr return now as foes."'

"Huh?"

"Don't you see? The Masters are the survivors of the civilization that the Greeks called Atlantis, the people who built Tisiphone. Now, the descendants of those who fled the devastated Earth 12,000 years ago are closing the circle, returning to the world of their ancestors; only they don't know that."

"Never mind, Lieutenant," Rick said. "Let's get up to the bridge. We'll be of better use up there."

"Linc, we're closing on them at a relative speed of 1600 kilometers an hour. Prepare for transformation."

"I wonder how they were able to get in the fold sphere? That EVA craft can't do that kind of speed."

"People tend to forget that, in space, there is no maximum speed, at least not until light speed. Momentum gained isn't lost, at least not immediately. Once the SDF-3 reached their pre-fold cruising speed, they shut down their engines. However, our two friends put their thrust on max and were going about twice as fast as the SDF when it folded."

"Why did it stop, then?"

"Folds absorb about 95% of the momentum of the folding objects, which left the EVA craft doing 100 and the SDF-3 barely moving. However, the SDF re-engaged their drives upon arrival, under SOP guidelines. Now be quiet and mechamorph, this isn't an orbital physics class!"

"Okay, okay. I hope this works." The Alpha pulled slightly forward from the Beta, and began transforming to Battloid. As the mechamorphosis neared completion the Battloid joining back into the Beta connectors, the intakes of the Battloid joining with the sections that had previously held the Alpha's engines. "Everything checks out, Karen. What's the range now?"

"10 klicks, I'm putting us in a swing out so that we can reach them from behind and slow down to match their speed. Are you ready?"

"Yes; let's get them out of here. What's the Invid situation like?"

"Not good. They'll get to the SDF-3 two minutes before us, if we use max acceleration. But, since they're unconscious, I can't tell how they are, and we can't risk hurting them by using maximum thrust."

"Any chance for backup?"

"Not really. The Veritech squadrons should be occupied by the time we get back. Right now we're one kilometer from the EVA craft, and closing at 20 meters a second... 720 meters, 18 meters a second."

"Karen, a squadron just launched without permission! They're moving to engage the Invid!"

"Ghost squadron. Even without Edwards, their battle lust is as predictable as it is strong. Get ready; Range 50 meters, closing at 5 meters... 30 meters, closing at 4... 15 meters, closing at 2... closing at 1, range five, four, three, two, one. Contact!"

"I have them, Karen, begin acceleration. I can see them through the canopy, Minmei's fainted, but I'm not sure about Janice. I don't know if she's breathing or not."

"Don't worry; Janice has at least as much martial arts training as you have, albeit in different disciplines. She's in a deep trance, and has slowed her metabolism down to conserve air," Karen fibbed, knowing the first part was true (Lang spared no expense to program her as a bodyguard) but making up the last part to protect Janice's secret, even though the Janice public interface herself didn't know the truth.

"Really? She must be quite an amazing person."

"She doesn't even know half of her capabilities. You've heard the rumors about Dr. Lang and her?"

"Yes, but I don't really know what to think about them."

"Well, they're not true. But then the official line isn't quite true, either. You see, Lang created her."

"I see." Karen noticed that he took it exactly how she hoped he would. Kyle assumed that Janice was a Zentraedi; or at least Lang's version of one.

"So, you'll keep it a secret?"

"As long as you keep mine. Let's get them back."

"Commander Freeman is right, Admiral," Exedore said. "Those are Invid troop carriers." Scott, Rick, Exedore and Breetai were gathered around the threat board. Marie had relieved the male tech at the board and was working on enhancing the readings.

"Could they have formed an alliance with the Masters?" Lisa asked from her command chair.

"That is very unlikely, Admiral," Exedore replied.

"Admiral, that would be like two Siamese fighting fish sharing a tank," Marie said. "The Masters are directly responsible for the Invid becoming the bloodthirsty race they are, by stealing the Protoculture, and the Masters would rather fight a war to the death than let any other race have access to the Protoculture. The Zentraedi are living proof of the latter."

"Admiral Hunter, what's going on?" Dr. Lang interrupted.

"We've got company, Doctor," Rick answered, the tone in his voice telling Lang exactly what kind of company he meant.

"The ship must be protected."

"Admiral, I'm picking up multiple launches from the troop carriers," Marie called out.

"Focus scanners on one of the Invid mecha appeared on the screen." Rick ordered, one of the Invid mecha appeared on the screen. Breetai, can you identify it?"

"It is the Invid's most advanced mecha. It fires plasma beams from the large horn-like appendages. I'm surprised they're here; the Invid usually reserve them as hive defense mecha."

"I want Skull scrambled."

"Ghost squadron is already out, sir"

"What! Who ordered them out?"

"Colonel Benson, sir."

"Benson? That idiot has less military sense than Edwards had!"

"Sir, Ghost Squadron reports they're moving in to engage."

"Well, they're out there and the Invid launched first. We really have no choice, Ghost leader, you are clear to engage as soon as you are fired upon, but NO SOONER. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

Five minutes later, the tacnet was filled with the noises of battle, from the curses of a missed shot to the short, horrible sound of a cockpit exploding.

"I should be out there," Rick whispered to himself, Breetai and Exedore had left, Breetai to the Zentraedi command center, and Exedore to Engineering. Marie had switched from the threat board to the communication console. Scott was still beside Rick, and he overheard Rick's whisper.

"Rick, I wouldn't want Lisa to hear what you just said."

"Huh? I'm sorry, Scott. It's hard sitting here while there's a battle out there. I feel left out."

"I know. Marie and I would be in the hangar right now if it wasn't for my being one of the few people who has actually been on Tyrol, albeit another universe's Tyrol."

"Has anyone located Colonel Benson yet?"

"He's on his way up to the Sit Room, sir," the security officer reported.

"Rick, you better get going. We can manage up here," Lisa called over to him.

"C'mon, Rick. We have to go down there and find out what Benson is up to."

"You're both right. Let's go."

"Sirs," the comm tech interrupted, having taken back his station. "The enemy is retreating."

"Thank God-"

"Ghost is in pursuit."

"What? Who ordered pursuit - Benson?"

"Negative, sir. We don't know who gave the order, sir."

"Direct the Skull to go - NOW!" Rick headed for the Sit Room.

"Scott!" Marie called out. "Karen and Linc are being pursued by the Invid!"

"Admiral Hayes! Request permission to go after them!"

"Denied, Commander Freeman. Mister Blake, who's on the hangar deck besides the Skull?"

"Colonel Wolfe is there, but the rest of his squadron hasn't been called on yet, as the Wolfe Pack is primarily ground assault and air support."

"Get me Wolfe," Lisa said, but before they could call him, he called the bridge.

"Admiral, I overheard Highlander-Four's problem. Request permission to launch."

"Colonel, I was just calling you to order you to do just that. Permission granted."

"Thank you, Admiral."

"Highlander-4, this is Wolfe Leader. Did somebody call for a tow?"

"Colonel, take the EVA craft," Karen said over the tacnet. "Lieutenant Isle and I will cover you."

"Roger." He came up and took the EVA craft, which was almost twice the size of his Logan, out of the Alpha's hand. "The Invid are closing; let's get out of here!"

"Roger. Linc, go for separation, and stay in Battloid."

"Wilco, Highlander-4. SDF-3, This is Guardian-7. I have separated from Highlander-4 and we are escorting Wolfe Leader in. Over."

"Roger, Guardian-7. You have seven bogies coming in on vector Delta-two-Bravo."

"I've got them, SDF-3. Tally-ho!" Karen spun her Battloid-mode Beta in the direction of the incoming Invid, and fired a swarm of Hammerhead missiles at them. Four of the elite Invid disappeared in balls of fire, and the other three met their end from missiles fired by Lt. Isle.

"Colonel, Karen, the way is clear. Let's get back aboard."

"Lieutenants, you sure had an easy time against the mecha that's been picking apart the others."

"Of coarse, Colonel, when there are only a few enemies and lots of ammunition, overkill; the best policy. I put eight missiles in each of them."

"I see. SDF-3! There's two transports behind you!" But the warning came too late, as the SDF-3 was peppered by hits from the transports.

**Chapter Three:**

"Sometimes you can't win for losing."

-20th Century Appalachian saying

**Arrival +13 minutes (date unknown)**

"Admiral?"

"Yes, Scott?"

"I just remembered something. Invid have Protoculture targeting systems."

"So?"

"What's the most important things on this ship that run off of Protoculture?"

"The main guns and the engines."

"Rick, the SDF-3 in the other universe was stranded due to an engine hit after its arrival on Tyrol!"

"Oh, God... Pinpoint Barrier Controllers! Move the Barriers to the rear and protect the engines at all cost, or we may never get home!"

"Admiral, Invid transports just folded to our rear! They're firing!" The ship shook from the blows.

"Damage Report!"

"Minor damage, sir. The barriers stopped most of it."

"Rotate laser arms and destroy those carriers!"

The ship shook again, this time harder than before.

"Admiral, the engineering deck reports heavy casualties. There was an explosion on the fold deck!"

"How?" Rick started to ask, then the screens on the ship all lit up with a recorded message.

"Hello to all you on the ship of fools. By the time you see this, you'll be where you can't stop me." Edward's face appeared on the screen. "Happy honeymoon, Hunters. You have your precious ship, but I have Earth, and by the time you return, I will be its ruler. Ta-ta, now, say hello to the Masters for me." His image started laughing maniacally, then the screens returned to normal.

"How did he do that?"

"He must have had someone rig up a detonator into the navigation and damage computers. As soon as we took damage after a fold, his charges would go off. He had to have had this done back during the final construction, when he was still alive."

"Damn. If we lose the fold generators, we'll be stranded here."

"Correction, Admiral. We ARE stranded here. The explosion caused two of the generators to disappear like the SDF-1's did."

The entire Sit Room was in shock, especially Col. Benson's aide, Major Riley. Riley ran out of the room, cursing. Benson sent a couple of the other ASC personnel after him.

Meanwhile, Rick and Scott turned their attentions to the trio bringing the EVA craft.

"Colonel Wolfe, you are cleared to land in airlock 6B, on the medical deck."

"Roger. I have to hand it to the Lieutenants, though. They were outnumbered over three-to-one, but took care of seven aliens almost before I knew they were there."

"Are you recommending them for commendations, Colonel?"

"Yes, Admiral. I'm sure you can dig up some award for them, whatever fits the situation. Even their going after the EVA craft was above and beyond the call of duty, considering the risks involved."

"Your recommendation is noted. When you're aboard, report to the command tower conference room. There's been a situation."

"Understood. What about the Lieutenants?"

"They are to go back to Skull Hangar, and await further orders. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," the lieutenants replied.

"Admiral Hunter out."

"Colonel, what's going on?"

"I don't know. I'll ask Commander Freeman to inform you after the meeting."

"Lieutenants," Rick said to the two in the waiting room of the Med Deck, where they had been called after waiting in the Skull ready room for an hour. Skull and Ghost had returned right after they had loaded, and there were rumors going through the squadrons, rumors that Karen already knew the truth of.

"Yes, sir."

"You did a good job out there. I have discussed this with Admiral Hayes, and I hereby award you with the Titanium medal, and a promotion to full lieutenant." He stepped up to each of them, pinned the medal on their chest, and saluted. He then handed them their "railroad tracks," and put them at ease. "Now, I've just got through checking on the two patients, and I know you want to see them too, Karen. You both have my permission to stay, if you wish."

"Thank you, sir," Karen said as Rick turned and left. "Well, Linc. I'll go check on Janice while you go see Minmei."

"Thank you, Karen, but I'm not sure whether I should interfere with her life. After all, there are two others aboard who are more likely to win her than I am."

"Maybe, but one day in the future one will be gone and the other turned to the shadow, and it will fall on you to protect her."

"Whatever, just stay out of my life, from now on, okay?"

"Got it." Karen went into the security area, down to Janice's room. Dr. Lang was already there.

"Hello, Emil."

"Karen, I hear you helped rescue our two castaways."

"Yes, I should have known what would happen."

"I had always assumed that Minmei had gone on the other world's mission voluntarily, and that your counterpart had brought Janice on the mission."

"I did as well, Karen. That's why I went out of my way to plant Janice as my spy in the celebrity circles that surround the UEG, and to link her vocal powers with Minmei's."

"By the way, how's our patient?"

"Her systems are intact, if that's what you mean. I should have known using those advanced android parts I found in Zor's SDF-1 quarters would result in a free-willed persona. But, if I hadn't used them, she would have been obviously artificial."

"Don't blame yourself, Janice, code Rubicon. Activate main program."

"Karen?"

"How are you feeling?"

"A little dizzy. I guess you know about Minmei and me."

"I do. In fact, I got this," she fingered her medal, "for helping bring you two in."

"How is Lynn?"

"She'll be fine after she gets some rest. Now you lie down and get some rest. I'll arrange for you and Minmei to have quarters down in the diplomatic section."

Karen and Dr. Lang left the room, heading for the command tower. "The Sentinels will be arriving soon, within the week."

"But, first, we must find out for certain who is left on Tyrol."

"There are two very important persons left there, Dr. Lang. We just have to wait for them to contact us. Oh, I checked the ship's chronometers on how long our trips lasted. Christmas is in two weeks."

"But how happy will the new year be?"

Meanwhile, Rick headed back to the bridge, thinking about what his and Lisa's options were, now that the REF would not be able to return home for years. Suddenly, an extraneous thought entered his mind. Where had he seen Isle before? Could he be... Nah, couldn't be; he'd never join a military. "Rick Hunter, you're becoming paranoid in your old age," he said to himself, mimicking Roy Fokker's voice.

**Chapter Four:**

"The Inorganics that humans labeled `Cougars' or `Hellcats' were a mystery to all the Sentinel races. Of all the worlds in the Inner Sphere, none of them had animal life remotely resembling large felines; the closest were the pet cats that used to be present on Tyrol, but had been extinct for several thousand years. It was staring us in the face, but only Karen had any idea what the true origin of the design was, and she was in no position to say anything. Somewhere in his devolving, the Regent had stumbled across some deep-buried racial memory of one of the saber-toothed cats of Earth, which we now know weren't extinct until their last refuge was destroyed by the tsunamis and rising waters of the Fall of Atlantis and Ind. Something that looked THAT much like something from Earth's past shouldn't have been ignored by the scientists on the mission, yet it was."

- Marie Sterling Freeman, Skull, Highlander & the Sentinels: Prelude to Light

**Arrival +19 hours (12/12/2021*)**

"Well, Scott, you got your wish. Highlander's going in with Skull."

"Thanks, Max."

"Don't thank me, thank Rick. Mir and I aren't thrilled with having Marie out here, you know."

"Yes, I know; but it's her fight too, and she's as much an adult as Miriya is. You can't play favorites just because she's your daughter."

"At least we're being held in reserve until Jon or Vince call for us. I'm getting worried about Rick, though. He's all antsy all of a sudden."

"They say you can take the pilot out of the fighter, but not the fighter out of the pilot."

"He's living proof. I'm not sure how long we can keep him from abandoning his duties and going out on flight missions again."

"He probably won't go this time, but it's slowly eating away at him. It won't be long before he does."

"Scott, it's a go," Max called to Scott, both sitting in their Alphas' cockpits. "Vince has picked up transmissions from down there, and they want us to check them out. My team will be covering Wolfe, Miriya's the Zentraedi, while you'll be taking on the Invid problem directly."

"Sounds interesting," Scott said, giving the signal for his group to launch as he launched himself. The brown and blue sphere of Tyrol filled most of his vision. He switched over to Highlander's group frequency. "Highlanders, wait for Blue and Red, then follow me in."

"Roger, Green Leader," Karen replied; she was the only member of the squad not in an Alpha or Beta, instead flying a Super Valkyrie with a few modifications of her own,. One modification was a modified Fighter Pod force field that could be deployed to allow her to keep the additional armor during reentry, and later in the atmosphere to allow supersonic flight with the boosters attached. She still had to go subsonic to fire their missiles, but there wouldn't be any supersonic combat this mission, anyway.

"Prepare for atmospheric entry. Blue Team is assisting the Wolfe Pack, and Red is helping the 23rd Zentraedi. Our orders are to go street sweeping; if it ain't friendly, we waste it. Understand?"

A chorus of "Roger"s followed, along with their hitting the ionosphere. Three minutes later, they were over Tiresia, still shedding the excess speed from their descent.

"Targets sighted in sector Delta Romeo. Land and go upright; we're here to clean up this town." Scott felt Marie's Beta separate from his Alpha, then he pulled his transformation lever, transforming the Alpha to Battloid. He then began to drop to rooftop level.

"Scott, you got trouble at your five!" Marie called out, notifying her husband of the approaching Inorganics behind him.

"I got them!" Scott replied, rotating the Battloid around and cutting off the leg thrusters, dropping the last 10 meters to the ground. As he touched down, he fired eight missiles at each of the two Odeons. However, the missiles barely seemed to faze them. "Oh, no I don't! Marie, nail them!" The Odeons opened fire with their hand lasers, staggering the Alpha with their hits.

"Scott!" Marie hit the Odeons with her intermediate range missiles, dumping all ten missiles from each rack into each one. Both Odeons shattered from the blows. "Scott, are you all right?"

"Damn, those things are harder to kill than a Quadrono - no offense, Marie."

"None taken; though their toughness came from agility, not brute force like those monstrosities."

"Speaking of your parents, your father just flew over. Let's see where he's heading."

"Why not? Switching back to the group freq - now. Green Queen to Green Group. Fall in; we're heading downtown."

"Roger, Green Queen," Karen replied for the others; "We're right behind you."

They flew down the streets, Karen in Guardian mode, the others in Battloid, only slowing down to hose down a pack of Cougars with their gun pods. While they traveled, Karen used her mental agility to monitor the frequencies of Blue and Red groups.

"Green Leader, you aren't going to believe this!"

"What is it, Green Giant?"

"Blue Team's picking up two idiots on a hover cycle near the Royal Hall. Get this; they're Dr. Penn's daughter, and Hunter's pet project, Baker."

"Sounds like something he'd do, but how did he con Karen Penn into a joyride in a war zone?"

"According to Max, they picked up a message from a couple of natives, names Cabell and Rem, and picked them up too. Ring a bell, Scott?"

"As a matter of fact; yes, they do. They're our best hope for getting the SDF-3 repaired, so I'll bust heads if Intel doesn't treat them well."

"Join the club. I'm calling Rick right now, to convince him that we need to be part of the debriefing."

"It'll sure beat shooting robots that shatter like clay pigeons."

"You must be doing it better than we were, Karen."

**Chapter Five:**

"Old pilots never die; they just get others killed covering their incompetent ass."

- Anonymous member of Skull Squadron

**Arrival +32 hours (12/13/2021*)**

Rick had got them into the meeting under fairly straightforward circumstances. Scott had met Cabell and Rem in the other universe, albeit briefly, and Karen was not only Scott's aide, but spoke fluent Zentraedi and had the best comprehension of Tiresian of anyone on the entire mission.

"Admiral, Commander Freeman and Lt. Ellison are here for the interview."

"Good; show them to their seats. Where is Benson? The meeting's supposed to start in two minutes, and he's the only one not here yet." Just then, Major Riley showed up, half out of breath.

"Sorry, I'm late, Admiral."

"Where's Benson?"

"He's ill, sir. He asked me to represent Ghost at this meeting."

"Take your seat, Major; and it you ever come running into a meeting again, I'll have you busted down to private."

"Understood, sir." However, when Rick turned away, Riley gave Hunter a look that could burn through steel. Oblivious to this, Rick began the meeting.

"Now that we are all here, let's get on with the meeting. As you all know by now, the Ground Mobile Unit picked up a distress signal from the structure known as the 'Royal Hall'. Elements of Skull Squadron were sent to investigate, and found the two persons who sent out the call, as well as two ensigns who had attempted a ground rescue during the period when air support was unavailable. This meeting is to determine what status should be accorded to these two Tiresian citizens, and find out from them as much information as possible from the Robotech Masters. Security, bring in our guests."

Cabell and Rem were led in, and seated at the far end of the table from Rick. Lang took one look at Rem, then totally lost his normally calm demeanor.

"Is... Is it you?"

"Huh?" Rem was confused by the question, and understandably nervous, considering the manner in which he was treated over the last day.

"Zor. You, you were the one..."

Cabell made a quick move to protect his apprentice. "No, no. There is some resemblance, but this is not Zor. Zor has been dead a long time."

"Of course... I know that," Lang said, regaining his composure.

"Cabell looked down the table, and about lost HIS composure when he saw Exedore.

"Welcome, Cabell," Exedore said, bowing to the old scientist. "No, your eyes have not deceived you, as Dr. Lang's have."

"But Exedore, how is this possible?"

"Zor's ship crashed on Earth, and was rebuilt by the Micronian population. The Zentraedi arrived ten Earth years later, and we were met with opposition from the fortress, which had been rebuilt by the Micronians. The fortress, renamed the SDF-1 by the humans, was cornered, and made an attempt to space fold. This took place close to the planet's surface..."

"Impossible!"

"Lord Breetai and I thought so as well, but the ship did fold, accidentally taking a population center with it as well. The fold took them to the far reaches of their planetary system, and, after rescuing the civilians, they battled back to their homeworld, despite the Zentraedi's best efforts to stop them without destroying the ship."

"Exedore," Karen interrupted, speaking in flawless Tiresian; "Can I continue the story, from the human point of view?"

"Yes, Lieutenant Ellison, if you wish."

"Thank you. Cabell, the citizens of Macross City had rebuilt their homes inside the ship. In a way, the ship had BECOME the city during the reconstruction. The fortress would have fallen early had it not been for the civilians volunteering to fill the ranks of the fallen warriors, and in the weapons plants. After Admirals Hunter and Hayes, both low-ranking officers at the time, escaped from captivity aboard Dolza's ship, where they had been taken by Breetai, it was decided that Micronized spies would be placed aboard the SDF-1, to study what was truly a culture alien to their own. The three Zentraedi spies quickly became enamored with Micronian society, and brought their discoveries back to the Imperial Fleet, where these forbidden practices quickly took root. In fact, the spies later led a defection of a number of warriors and officers to the SDF-1.

"Meanwhile, the SDF-1 returned to Earth, only to be ordered back into space to try to lure the Zentraedi away from the planet. During this short period on Earth, Azonia's Squadron Leader, Miriya Parino, was humiliated in battle by the human's ace pilot. You met him earlier; Max Sterling. As a result of this defeat, she demanded to be micronized so she could find and kill the human ace in his own environment. She found him in an amusement center, though she did not know it at first. He had fallen in love with her from afar, not knowing who she was, and asked her to compete against him on a mecha simulator. It was then that she realized who he was, as he defeated her easily. Part of the reason for her defeat was the strange feelings she had felt for him during the mock combat. He asked her to meet him later that night, and she agreed, in order to be able to have her chance to kill him."

"What does this have to do with the fortress?"

"It set into action a chain of events. That night, she attacked him, only to be defeated a third time. Unable to take the humiliation, she asked him to kill her. Instead, he kissed her. Against all odds, Human and Zentraedi had fallen in love. Their marriage caused shockwaves to go throughout Breetai's fleet, as it was at this time that the defections of the spies also became common knowledge. Soldiers disobeyed orders to attack the SDF-1, claiming their right not to attack other Zentraedi. Exedore was sent as an envoy to the SDF-1, and a truce was declared when word came that Dolza was bringing the Main Fleet to destroy both the Earth and the contaminated Imperial Fleet.

"Dolza's fleet arrived, and decimated the Earth first. But the planet was not defenseless, as a gigantic reflex cannon had been built into the planet's crust, and it counter-attacked, destroying over half of Dolza's forces by itself. The rest was destroyed by the Imperial Fleet and the SDF-1, though less than one hundred ships out of six million from both fleets were spaceworthy at the end of the battle. The method of the victory is best left to Dr. Lang to explain."

"And the armada was actually defeated? Almost five million ships..." Cabell made the only logical, though erroneous, assumption possible. "Then, you have the MATRIX!" No one spoke. "You do have it, don't you?"

"It didn't exist. We searched everywhere-" Lang was cut off by Cabell.

"Oh, it does exist! Are you sure you searched the fold generators and engines completely? The Matrix was hidden among these components. Zor never told me exactly where in them, though."

"The engines were scanned; nothing was found," Karen answered. "As for the fold generators, they disappeared after the first fold taken by the SDF-1 in Human hands. It wasn't until later that we discovered that the Matrix even existed. Besides, most of the SDF-1 was destroyed by Khyron, or salvaged to make the SDF-3. What little remained is buried on Earth."

"Cabell," Scott asked, "what did the Matrix components look like?"

"Similar to the standard anti-grav units. It was one of the few things Zor would confide in me."

"Oh, God. When I was checking the interior of the SDF-1, almost four years ago, I climbed over such a unit in the old fold chamber, which should have been empty. It must have come back, somehow!"

"The Matrix is the one source of Protoculture left - and the Masters have left Tyrol to find it!"

"Left for where?" Rick asked, dreading the answer he already suspected.

"Earth, Admiral," Rem replied.

"Oh my God," the entire Earth contingent seemed to utter as one.

"But you can overtake them," Cabell replied. "The Masters' fortresses have superluminal drives, but there wasn't sufficient Protoculture resources to permit a fold. They left after communication with Khyron was lost, and the projected length of their journey was thirteen to fifteen of your years. You should easily be able to return to Earth, and arrange peace between your planet and them once they arrive."

"We can't return. Our fold mechanisms were damaged in the battle with the Invid. We reasoned that by allying ourselves with Tyrol..."

"...You would acquire what you needed to return home."

"Precisely." Everyone went quiet.

"There's another complication," Rick added. "While we were preoccupied with the EVA craft that intruded into our fold effect, we received a rather irate communique from the commander of Earth's defensive forces. We didn't realize the reason for Leonard's anger until we took inventory after we attained orbital control. Our forces consist of three components. Those are the RDF, which is responsible for most space operations within our home system; the Armies of the Southern Cross, in charge of ground and orbital defense; and the REF, which draws personnel from the first two for extra-solar operations, including exploration, establishment of colonies, and diplomacy. Our mission here was the central mission for the existence of the REF, but we weren't supposed to intrude on the regular operations of the other two components. That trust has been violated, and I feel that we will receive a very negative, if not hostile, reaction when we return home."

"Admiral, what are you talking about?" one of the civilian diplomatic delegation asked.

"For the last two years, our production facilities on Earth, Mars and the Jovian moons were tasked with making the new, smaller mecha for this mission, the extra-solar colonies, and the Southern Cross. The Earth facilities concentrated on the mecha and power armors for the specialized units, such as the wet navy, amphibious forces, and various hostile climates, while the others concentrated on space-capable craft and heavy combat units. The Zentraedi Factory Satellite we captured was used as the distribution point for the latter two categories, since it was the launch facility for this mission, the colony supply ships, and was constantly receiving transports from the surface, that would otherwise return to the planet empty. It saved resources to ship the mecha for Earth's defenders to the Satellite, then from there to the planet on those cargo ships. As a result, the colonies got their shipments all at once on converted Zentraedi scouts and Earth ships of similar size, while Earth got a handful each day in a slow trickle, depending on the capacity of the transports and the availability of type-qualified pilots willing to take brand new fighters into atmospheric reentry. So, a large number of the destroids and Alpha Veritechs meant for the Southern Cross were aboard the Factory Satellite awaiting delivery. That is, until several months' production of their mecha somehow found their way into our cargo hold."

"How could that happen?"

"Ironically, it was the commander of the Southern Cross forces attached to this mission that ordered it, without telling either the Southern Cross or REF command. Colonel Benson asked Dr. Lang if he could add some additional mecha to our complement, and received tentative approval, without specifics. Benson used that to take ALL of the undelivered mecha and load them aboard, during the wedding festivities, when it would be least likely to be noticed. We've been trying frantically to contact Earth, but something is blocking our signals to and from Earth, using systems that we know should be allow near-real-time contact between here and our homeworld. That's probably why Benson sent Riley here in his stead. We can only hope that Cabell is right in his assessment of the Masters' travel time, otherwise we might well have left Earth defenseless, and have no way of sounding a warning."

The room again became silent.

"Enough of this, for now," Scott said, breaking the dead silence. "We're in a war, now. Admiral, Cabell, what we should be discussing is how to fight the Invid."

Meanwhile, Cabell was startled to hear a voice in his head.

"Cabell, this is Karen. Don't ask me how I can talk to you like this; don't even acknowledge me at all right now. I need to talk to you, alone. It concerns Rem, Zor, and myself. Just think when and where we can meet, and I'll know."

"I understand," he thought. "Meet me after the meeting. I'll ask you to give me a tour of the ship."

"Understood. See you then."

The meeting continued for a while longer, discussing Invid strengths, weaknesses, and tactics. After it ended, Scott and Max tried, with no success, to talk Rick out of going out on the final assault on the Royal Hall. Lang and Karen opted out of this argument by agreeing to give Cabell and Rem a tour of the SDF-3. After a few minutes of the tour, Karen asked Emil to halt the tour for a few minutes.

"Dr. Lang, Cabell would like to speak to me alone for a while. Could you give Rem a tour of the recreation area while Cabell and I are busy?"

"Don't take too long; I want to show him our engine room."

"We won't be long at all."

"Well, be quick about it. I have many questions to ask him."

"So do I, Emil; So do I."

**Chapter Six:**

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness." - Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, used as an epigraph for the Tiresian History chapter of Karen Freeman's The Plane Truth.

**Arrival +35 hours (12/13/2021*)**

"Now, Miss Ellison, what is it you wished to discuss?" Cabell asked, now that the two were isolated in an emergency medical cubicle located near the bridge.

"I know that Rem is a clone of Zor, that you created of your dead colleague."

"How do you know this?"

"I know many things; my family experienced an accidental fold across dimensions several years ago, and I am one of the results of that trip to that alternate dimension's future. My family met you and Rem then, not to mention the leaders of the resistance groups from the Inner Sphere worlds. In fact, my powers may be the result of my Zentraedi mother being exposed to the hin on Garuda. I may not look it, but I am only about 4 Earth years old."

"You are half-Zentraedi? How many more cross-breeds are there?"

"There are several, but only one is publicly known as such. I am classified top secret, as even my parents don't know of my current physical age. There is my clone-sister, whom I created to take my place in my family, but she is unaware that she is a crossbreed or a clone. Dana Sterling, the daughter of Max and Miriya, is the publicly known one, and my aunt Marie Freeman is the clone of Dana Sterling. Scott Freeman, whom you met in the debriefing, is my uncle. A few others exist, but are hidden on Earth to protect them; radical elements from both human and Zentraedi society consider them abominations, and killed all the other publicly known crossbreeds."

"Amazing. What is the information you need?"

"First, I want to know how Tiresian society became despotic, from your perspective and Zor's."

"I gather you want something more than texts and oral dispositions."

"Am I that obvious? What I want to do is experience your memories of the events first-hand, as well as Zor's memories that are latent in Rem. All I would need is for the two of you to be put in a suggestive trance, then I can contact your minds directly and call up the memories myself."

"Would Rem be able to recall Zor's memories later?"

"Only with more in-depth probing by myself or someone with similar powers. I feel you have mixed feelings on having him claim his genetic heritage."

"I do. While I would love to have Zor, who was like a son to me, back, I have raised Rem like he was my son. I'm afraid that if the memories awakened, I could lose both. But, tell me more about you."

"I was already aware by the half-way point of my pre-natal period. During that time, I had absorbed most of my parents' knowledge through telepathy, as well as much from others that were around them. From that knowledge, I realized that I was far different from normal children, and I tried to hide it after my birth. Despite my best efforts, I had to show some aspects of my advanced intelligence and maturity. For example, I was crawling a week after I was born, and walking two weeks later. I was also aging well over one year for each month that passed, and eating enough to sustain such rapid growth. I used the computer skills I had taken from my father and others to break into Dr. Lang's computer remotely, and began using other stolen skills to research a way to slow my rapid aging. Using stuff that I acquired from Dr. Grant's med lab with my powers, I managed to slow it down to near normal.

"After stabilizing myself, I became good friends with Dana Sterling, as we were now about the same biological age. We were near-inseparable at the time. It was when someone tried to kidnap Dana that I discovered my more unique powers; I already knew about my telepathy and telekinesis. I blew up the kidnappers' weapons, and put them into comas from the traumatic effects of my psychic attacks. I began experimenting further with the limits of my powers after that, discovering just what I was capable of doing. This became important three months later, when I let my guard down, and a kidnaping attempt succeeded. One of the kidnappers tried to molest me, and I superheated the gases in his digestive system to prevent him from hurting me. I then teleported Dana and myself to safety, but at a terrible cost. The exertion caused me to begin growing again, aging days as each second passed. The place I had teleported to was the Factory Satellite captured by Breetai from Commander Reno, and I managed to locate first a food dispensary, then the sizing chambers. The food kept me alive, though in pain from the rapid growth, and I reprogrammed the chamber to make a few slight modifications to myself genetically. I stepped out of it looking much as I do now.

"I then made further program modifications, and created a more stable clone of myself, of the same apparent age as I had been at the time of the kidnaping. I then used my powers to program her with all the normal memories I had possessed prior to that time, submerging the rest until such time as she could handle them or might need them to survive. The main reason for her creation was to send her back home to our parents, and for me to remain anonymous. How could I go home to them and claim to be their daughter?"

"I see your reasoning. What went wrong?"

"During my wait, I couldn't handle taking care of both Noel and Dana, so I made an adult clone of Dana, to the be the friend for me that Dana was for my younger self. I educated and matured the clone with my powers, as well as bringing out her childhood memories, and we returned the children to their parents a couple weeks later, when it was safe for them. However, adult life became boring for us, so Marie and I came up with a plan that would let us guard our little sisters - we would join the RDF. We fabricated pasts for ourselves in the Earth computer nets, and inserted ourselves into the RDF pilot school, using a combination of computing and telepathic implants to enter the school as graduating students; After all, we already had all the information from the school via the memories I had acquired from my family, and the physical coordination needed came from the use of the chambers to modify me and create her. We then altered the computing files in order to get assigned to our parents' unit. As of right now, only the Admirals, the Sterlings, Emil, Dr. Grant and my Uncle Scott know our true identities, due to our not covering our tracks well enough, followed by Scott and Marie's wedding."

"Where are your parents, and your little sister?"

"Mom and Dad are here aboard the SDF-3. Both Noel and the original Dana are back on Earth. That's been my story; when do I get to see yours?"

"I'll have to talk to Rem first. Even though he won't know why he's being probed, he'll still want to know why he'll have to submit to it."

"Thank you. I've located Emil, Exedore and Rem; they're in the Situation Room. Hold on to my hand, and I'll teleport us to an unoccupied room next to theirs."

"Are you sure this is saf-" Cabell's question was cut off by the teleport.

**Chapter Seven:**

"A nerdy son of a politician and a naive young musician... Who would have believed that they would be the centerpieces of a series of conflicts that covered centuries?"

- Noel Tyler, Kinship

**Arrival +46 hours (12/14/2021*)**

While the rest of Skull Squadron was busy assaulting the Royal Hall, Karen had managed to get herself excused from the combat. She used this time to set up the equipment she would need to make her delving into the minds of Cabell and Rem easier. Her subjects arrived punctually, as she finished the settings on the last monitor.

"Lieutenant Ellison?"

"What is it, sergeant?"

"The two aliens are here, ma'am."

"Show them in, sergeant, but remember; they're not aliens. They are just as human as you or me. Is that understood, sergeant, or are you bucking for corporal?" Karen gave a slight mental push to this last part, as well as a bit of voice modulation that unnerved the marine.

"Understood, ma'am!"

"Now, let them in, and don't let anyone in here while the experiments are underway."

The sergeant left, still quaking in his boots from the unsettling experience, as Cabell and Rem came into the lab.

"Miss Ellison, we are here."

"You can call me Karen. Thank you for coming. Now, for the purposes of this experiment, you will have to lay down on the examination table one at a time, while the other waits in the office. I will then administer the hypnosis drugs, and link myself into your memories while you are under."

"Karen," Rem asked, "will I see what you see?"

"No, you won't. Your trance will be too deep. However, I'll tell you if I find anything interesting in Cabell's memories; deal?" She winked at Rem.

"That sounds interesting; it's a deal."

Cabell started to object, but Karen cut him off.

"We're just teasing you, Cabell."

"I should hope so."

Karen went through Cabell's memories first, and what he found there only served to make her more curious about what she'd see in Rem's subconscious. In fact, she decided to go much deeper in the memories of the Zor clone than she did in Cabell, to the point where she would actually seem to experience the events in those memories. Just to be on the safe side, she called Cabell in to monitor her

while she was in her own trance state.

"Zor, the superluminal drives have shut down on schedule. We are twelve orbital units from Tyrol, closing at point-one lightspeed. We will be dropping to orbital speeds at a range of one unit."

"Thank you, Vard. Send a message to my father. Tell him my mission was successful, and that I will return home as soon as I am through with my debriefing with the Science Council."

"As you command, sir. Shall I contact Cabell for you?"

"Yes. Tell him that I have made a wonderful discovery; one that will change Tyrol forever." Zor paused, then stood. "I'll be in my quarters until we reach orbit. Until then, I am not to be disturbed." He turned, and walked off the bridge into his private quarters.

Yes, these discoveries will change Tyrol forever, he thought. The seeds of the Opteran flower, when placed in a proper container, could produce unlimited energy, free of pollution, radiation and explosion. And then there were the Invid, the possessors of this miracle plant; how different they were from his own people. The Invid were strange even by the standards of the other Inner Sphere races, with mammalian, reptilian and even invertebrate features; features that could not have evolved together normally. He would have to investigate this more closely next visit. Then, there was the Invid Regis, who was close to being a kindred spirit. Both of them were interested in the potential of the power of the flower, which was the Invids' only food source. He would have to keep her abreast of his discoveries.

Zor's mind wandered to other things, so Karen skipped ahead to that afternoon; a recollection that was vague in Cabell's own mind, possibly due to the pain that memory caused in the old scientist. She could tell that Cabell had often wished that he had never heard of the plant, and he was unconsciously suppressing his recollection of that first time. Rem had no such problems, however.

"Zor, my boy; what was so important that you couldn't tell me earlier?"

"This," Zor replied, practically shoving a potted Flower of Life into Cabell's face.

"A flower?" Are you serious?"

"Deadly serious. Look at this containment matrix. It has but one seed of the flower placed in the stasis field. Now, look at the power output, from where the excess energy absorbed by the field is being converted to electricity."

"That's incredible! How does it do that?"

"I think that the plant is somehow extracting the energy inherent in the fabric of space through a biologic process. It uses that energy to fight the stasis field surrounding it and still grow slowly, but I can't figure out how it can do that. The feedback from the process outputs back through the stasis unit, and can even sustain itself if you can route the power back to the inputs."

"That makes my head hurt... That's close to being an infinite power engine."

"Not quite, but it is so similar it is scary. What keeps it from being such is that, eventually, it will overpower the stasis field and the plant will mature. This sudden power cut-off typically causes the stasis field to have a power fault, and shut down, even if powered by an outside source. But, there are are other uses for the adult plant."

"Such as?"

"I also brought back a supply of processed flower extracts, which the Invid use to evolve themselves to fill niches in their society. These extracts go so far as to even change the subject's DNA, though the original pattern is somehow recorded for later reversion. For example, the Regis used them to make herself more Tiresian in form, growing extra fingers, a new skin and even taking the exterior form resembling one of our women."

"That genetic manipulation; do you think that it could be used on our race as well?"

"Do we really want to know if it can?"

"I guess not. The energy has a signature I've never seen before, perhaps from giving off sub-atomic radiation we normally only see in particle collisions. What do you think would happen if I plugged it into my monopole experiment rig?"

"I don't know; your problem has been that of power, hasn't it? You haven't found an energy type that has the correct modulation to produce a stable warp. If the plant is sourcing energy from where I believe, then it might be uniquely suited for wormhole manipulation."

"Hand me those cables."

"Are you sure it's safe to hook this up in here? It would be much safer to try it in orbit tomorrow."

"If Tryt'n had kept putting off building, Tiresia wouldn't be here. Stand back." Cabell hooked in the cables, and activated the rig by remote control. The room was filled with a white flash, followed by the sound of a thunderclap. When the light cleared, the rig was gone, along with the matrix.

"Zor, my boy; are you all right?"

"I've got glare spots in my eyes, but otherwise, I'm fine. Look, the rig is gone!"

"Along with the matrix, and the table they were sitting on."

"Where did you send them?"

"The target site is in the abandoned mine pit west of the city, but there's some variables in my equations that indicate that gravity can have an adverse affect on the targeting."

"And you tried it anyway?"

"I figured, why not?' We can always build a new rig and matrix, and you have plenty of seeds."

Suddenly, the communications terminal squawked. "CABELL!"

"What is it, Chairman Shaizan?"

"That... that CONTRAPTION of yours just materialized up here in the Science Council meeting chamber! It nearly materialized inside one of my assistants, and the shockwave threw him across the room. What have you to say for yourself?"

"I respectfully request more funding to move further research into orbit. My 'contraption', powered by Zor's discovery, may open up space travel to the far reaches of the galaxy."

"Request approved; but take it outside of the system entirely until you can control it better." The screen went blank, and Cabell hugged his former student.

"Zor, We've done it! The universe is ours to explore!"

"But will the senate settle for just exploration?" Both men fell quiet for a few seconds, then Zor broke the crypt-like silence. I'll talk to Father tonight. He's throwing me this huge homecoming party, and at least a dozen other senators will be there. You know I don't like parties, but Father has always gone out of his way to give me the best of everything, ever since Mother died."

"He still thinks you should give up science, and follow in his footsteps."

"I know; but that's how parents are. I'll see you tomorrow morning." Zor left the lab, which was deep under the Royal Hall, and started the long hover-car drive home. Tiresia had changed considerably in the two stellar years he had been gone, and he managed to become lost twice on the way home.

"Master Zor, your best clothes were brought out of storage and placed in your old room. As soon as you are dressed, your father wishes for you to join him at the main table in the banquet room."

"Thank you, uhhh..."

"Kadon, sir. I was hired shortly after your departure. Your father spoke of you often."

"Thank, you, Kadon. Tell Father that I will be down shortly."

"As you wish, sir."

Zor climbed the steps to the second floor of the palatial residence, and found his room much as he had left it. The model spaceship he had scratch-built as a child was still on the windowsill, and the picture of his mother stood on the night stand. He didn't need a picture to remember her face, even though she had died ten years ago. Lynia had long black hair, deep blue-green eyes, and a singing voice that melted all of his fears away, even when he recalled her songs now. He shook away the memories, as they were going to make him late for the dinner, and picked out the least out-of-style jumpsuit he could find, dressing quickly. His haste was not for his father, but from the fact he hadn't ate since breakfast. He picked up the picture of his mother, an old-fashioned 2-D photo, and kissed it on the cheek. He then set the picture back down, turned out the light, and headed downstairs.

When he entered the hall, he instantly noted how many of his father's friends were in attendance, as everyone stood when he came in and was escorted to the head table.

"Father, why all the ceremony?"

"Son, you are very special to me, and to everyone else here. Besides, can anyone else here claim that they were the first Tiresian to set foot on a newly-discovered alien world?"

"Well, I don't see what's so important. We've had trade with dozens of worlds for years."

"Nonsense! It's very important. Your superiors in the in the Ministry of Science think that your Optera may be the last major world mentioned in the writings of the Haydon, that's been eluding explorers for centuries. They want you to go to Haydon IV and use the data you brought back to either confirm or refute this possibility. Besides, I have a personal message for one of my Haydonite colleagues that I want you to deliver personally when you get there. This banquet was organized to allow you to enjoy what little time you have before you are to depart."

"Leave? When?"

"One orbit of Fantoma. I'm sorry it's such short notice, but Shaizan and the others think that it's vital that you go there. They even got the heads of the council to rush your ship's refueling."

"If it's that important, I guess I have no choice."

"Then it's settled. Sit back, and relax. There's a new singer who's on the rise right now, so I hired her to perform for you tonight. I'm sure you'll like her; she reminds me a bit of your mother."

"I'd have to hear her to believe that." Zor was ravenous, so he wasn't about to delay dinner by arguing the point. He looked toward the platform set up across the center of the room, and saw a young woman step out of the dimness into a spotlight, which was shining down from the balcony overhead. He took one look at her, and instantly forgot how hungry he was. She had flowing green hair down to her waist, and large violet eyes that seemed bottomless. She began singing, and her voice seemed to reverberate inside him, bringing to the surface feelings that he hadn't felt since his mother's death. When she was finished singing, the songs lingered in his soul.

"What... what is her name?"

"Musica; did you like her?"

"Like her? I would like to meet her."

"I've also arranged for a dance tonight, so I'll introduce you to her there."

"Thank you, Father."

Karen skimmed through the next few months of memories. Musica seemed naggingly familiar, but how? She never saw the girl in Cabell's memories, but Cabell had evidently used something on his mind at some point to erase key memories; probably to protect him from being connected to the plot she saw being crushed there. Musica and Zor had hit it off immediately, and his father was glad to see them together. When Zor left for Haydon IV, Musica went with him. Together, they confirmed the council's theories, and more important, they became lovers, amid the spires of Glike. Finally, the two returned to Tyrol, to an incident that shocked Karen as much as it had Zor and Musica.

**Chapter Eight:**

"Surprisingly, Zor and his father never suspected the motives of the Science Council and their sponsors until after their brainwashing of Zor, by which time of course it was too late."

- Karen Freeman, The Plane Truth

"Cabell! Where are you?" Zor called out, finding the main lab empty when he returned from Haydon IV, though he heard noise in the sterile room. "We're back, and I want to fill you in on what we found!"

"Zor, scrub up! I need your help in here, quick!"

"What's going - ...on." Zor entered the room, to find Cabell working on a reddish-skinned dwarf, whose bodies bore several obvious deformities. "Who is this?"

"After you left, the council ordered me to begin exploring possible uses of the Invid genetic manipulation processes, to create a subrace of our own capable of using recloning manipulation to adapt to hostile environments. The object is to create a race capable of supervising the mining of the monopole ore on Fantoma's floating continent."

"And you went along with them? How could you?"

"Calm down, boy. By the time our work is through, they should be indistinguishable from normal Tiresians, except for their ability to be expanded to six times their normal height and back in a Protoculture chamber. The only other major difference is the chance that some of them will be infertile with our race, and vice-versa, due to genetic variation."

"What went wrong with this poor soul?"

"He's still alive, barely. There was a power surge into the chamber during his creation, and part of the growth process was disrupted. This resulted in the physical deformities you see, but the height and some less obvious deformities are the result of bad programming, I fear. I'm not the geneticist you are, and the council was pushing me for results."

"How intelligent is he?"

"He's on our level, in terms of aptitude, and I programmed his mind with language skills, motor skills, and enough information to work at our side as at least an aide, if not more, once he gets some hands-on experience. The first few days after his creation, he was able to assist me in my work, but his systems started to fail. I've managed to modify his DNA to correct some of the problems, but he's not in any condition for the recloning process. So, I cloned new organs for him, that will be replaced when he next uses one of the chambers."

"Isn't the transplant operation dangerous?"

"He's got twice the chance of surviving this than the chamber. He chose the operation method, as if it fails we won't have to bring him back. His last few days have been horrible on him."

"Then, let's get to work."

The day after the operation, the clone (whom Karen now recognized as Exedore) was awake and on his way to recovery. The three debated on what to do about the continuation of his race, and they decided to concentrate on improving the strength and endurance of later clones, with the still-undesigned females being targeted for precision work duty (with increased manual dexterity and reflexes to handle such jobs). Exedore himself would be the advisor and technical expert for the Zarkopolis Mining Complex, as his small size made him dangerously light for the microgravity environment of the "continent", if it could be called such. It was actually a small planetoid inside the atmosphere of Fantoma, kept from falling further by the monopole ore, which produced an anti-gravity effect from its interaction with the massive magnetic field of the planet. Only sheer luck had produced the balance between the pull of gravity of Fantoma on the rock and the anti-gravity effect of the monopole. As a result, the continent rode the currents of the atmosphere, slowly dropping further into the atmosphere as the ore was mined. The seemingly paradoxical need for high-mass miners (who even with their huge size weighed about as much while on the rock as they would as a micronian on Tyrol) was singularly suited for the environment.

Zor spent a full orbit around Fantoma working on the modifications to the gene patterns, and created two new prototypes shortly thereafter. Dolza was to be the head of the mining operation, while Breetai would be the leader of the miners themselves. Both were imposing even as micronians, standing nearly twice Exedore's height. The first mining crew soon followed; 800 males and 200 females. These were the unique Zentraedi, crafted by hand to fit their jobs, and separate from those that would follow. It was also at this time that sexual segregation had its start, though it had been planned as only temporary. Karen remembered the research she had seen, that while Breetai and Exedore were unique, later Zentraedi had been based on a set of racial templates. Only those two still remained out of the 1000 originals, as most died fighting the Invid, and the rest were with Dolza in his fleet.

Karen began to notice the changes that soon followed, things that hadn't been apparent from Cabell's memories. Zor first began to notice odd things when all the ore ships were built for size-increased crews only, with mining tools that could be used just as easily as weapons. The High Council and Science Council became more secretive, and yet it seemed they always had their noses in Cabell and Zor's work. Finally, two years after the creation of the Zentraedi, Zor received a mysterious summons to the Council Chamber. He never remembered ever getting there, not even long after the fact.

When he regained full awareness of his surroundings, it was much later. He had come to his senses over Optera, in time to order the Zentraedi to stop just short of defoliating Optera. He ordered the fleet home, and went to his quarters aboard ship to find out what had happened. The computer records were far worse than he had imagined. Not only had Optera been nearly stripped clean, but the Zentraedi had harvested nearly all the remaining flowers for the Tyrolean government. The Zentraedi's mining programming had been stripped away, replaced by a crude warrior program that Zor could tell had none of Cabell's work in it; only the council members were that sloppy. While the Zentraedi had no memory of their lives as miners, they still obeyed his orders, and he made them push the ship to its limits on the trip home. Things had gone horribly wrong, and he feared the worst.

The worst he imagined paled compared to what he found. The ship's arrival went unacknowledged, save by Dolza's command, and he was undisturbed during his flight down to Tiresia. Only when he debarked was he met by an armed guard, who escorted him back to an empty house. Eager to escape his shadows, he slipped into the catacombs underneath the city through the secret entrance he discovered as a child, and made his way to an exit near Cabell's lab.

"Cabell, what's happened to me?" he asked, walking into the lab and startling his mentor.

"Be quiet..." Cabell whispered. "The walls have ears. Meet me at Rhestad's zenith in your heart's desire." Zor figured out the cryptic message - meet later, at the time Garuda's star was at its highest point in the Tiresian sky, at Musica's apartment.

"But..."

"Zor, I'm too busy right now! Go home!"

Confused, Zor left. What was going on? Had the entire planet lost their senses? He returned to the tunnels, and made his way to Musica's apartment in the Hall of Music. When he knocked on the inside of her walk-in closet's door, he nearly scared her to death. When he identified himself, she stepped into the closet with him, then started crying in his arms.

WHAT? Did this really happen? Karen felt something was wrong about this scene, but couldn't place it. She turned her attention back to the unfolding drama...

"Zor, it was so horrible! I had almost given up hope that you were still alive!"

"Why did you think I might be dead?"

"You disappeared almost a year ago. Then a few days later, the Senate was killed by a mysterious explosion."

"All of them? My Father-"

"He's dead; they all are. Only the High Council and the Science Council survived, and they have been ruling the planet by emergency edict ever since. Anyone who has publicly voiced the opinion that the councils were responsible for the bomb disappeared soon after, or has died a horrible death. The streets are overrun by their security clones, and the miners have become troops that have overthrown the legitimate governments of our colonies and allies, in the guise of rooting out the traitors who instigated the bombing. Our republic has become an empire, with three emperors and their lackeys. Where have you been?"

"They used me; drugged me into their willing slave. They forced me to go back to Optera, and steal all the Protoculture, and destroy all that I couldn't steal. I betrayed my friends there in the most horrible way possible; I don't deserve to live."

"Don't say that! You didn't have any control over what happened! You must live for the future. Cabell, myself and others have been quietly organizing a group to try to stop these self-declared 'Masters', and we could use your help."

"I will, because I must. The Masters have killed my father, my Invid friends, and my pride. I swear that I won't stop trying to depose them, even if I must act from beyond the grave to do so."

The group of conspirators grew over the next few months, its membership including scientists, artists, and the few minor or retired politicians that escaped the putsch of the Masters. But more and more edicts came down, hampering both the meetings and their personal lives; bans on marriage, reproduction, and most of the arts, unless specifically authorized by one of the Elders (as the High Council called themselves) or the Masters (the former Science Council, which enforced the policies set forth by the Elders). These were followed by the Edict of Genetic Purity, which required all citizens to give cell samples to the Council of Genetic Purity for study.

Cabell quickly discovered that this Council were called "Clone Masters" by the Elders, and served the sole purpose of creating the next generation of Zentraedi, 20 BILLION strong. The information from the creation of these Zentraedi would then allow the Clone Masters to begin replacing the general populace with genetically perfect, subservient clones. Only those of "Master" classes and higher would be exempt from this plan, to avoid favoritism by the Masters for their offspring (as well as any indication that the Masters themselves might be imperfect). However, the boon gained by those not cloned was much, much more; the treatments discovered by studying the Flower of Life would give these select people the gift of effective immortality. Aging would be slowed to a near halt, and damaged bodies could be replaced by healthy clone bodies when needed, as long as the brain of the person was reasonably intact. Ironically, half of the resistance group's core were chosen for the latter, under the title category of Science Master; an irony not lost on them.

At what had been planned as the next to last meeting before their plan was to be put into operation, the resistance group met its end. Karen had wondered why this area had been blank in Cabell's memories, and now she knew. As he had done before, he had blotted out certain parts of his memory, to protect himself, Zor, and Rem. Of course, the fact that Cabell had been in the middle of a Masters-required experiment had saved his life, and he had no choice than to erase his memories on hearing what had happened to his few friends that survived.

The conspirators had gathered for a meeting, in a former legal office owned by Gamel. Gamel had been the most trusted friend of Reman Zol in the Senate, a father figure almost. Gamel had survived only because he had retired from the Senate while Zor and Musica had been on their romantic trip to Haydon IV. That trip had been only four years earlier, but it seemed like an eternity ago now.

"Zor, what is your plan?" Gamel asked, presiding over the meeting.

"It will be risky, and may take decades, but what choice do we have? We don't have the strength to overthrow the Masters directly, but if we can get the subjected worlds to help..."

"How?"

"I plan to give the Flowers of Life to the inhabited planets of our Local Group Systems. I will also provide them with the knowledge needed to use the Flowers, and build the Matrices needed for their use. Eventually, they will be strong enough to rise against the Masters, and then we can activate the counter- programming Cabell has engineered for the Zentraedi mental control templates, for insertion when the new warriors are produced. With the power of most of the Zentraedi and the Local Group behind us, we can overthrow the Masters with a minimum of bloodshed. We will then return as many seeds as possible to Optera, to atone for what the Masters made me do."

"But how will you get the Flowers off-planet?" the representative from the Sculptor's Guild asked. "The Masters have halted all space travel in our system, except for military missions."

"The Masters have inadvertently sponsored this plan," Zor replied, smiling. "I have been ordered to seed some of the Empire's planets with the Flowers to increase our own supply. I'll just seed only planets that are potential allies, and hold back the means of artificial pollenation I've developed to replace the Invid's role until such time as the Flowers are needed by our allies. After all, the plants would be useless to both the Masters and the locals until pollinated, and this would reinforce to the others that they must help us in order to be helped themselves."

"Very interesting; it might just work," Gamel said, after contemplating the speech for a minute. "Especially if the Karbarrans and Garudans go along with it." Others bega murmuring their approval as he continued. "Let's get started on fleshing out the particulars of your plan-"

"This is the Imperial Security Force!" a voice called from outside the room, interrupting Gamel. "Surrender in the name of the Masters of us all!"

Gamel quickly gathered his thoughts, and instigated their escape plans. "Quickly! Everyone get into the tunnels!" His office was connected to the catacombs, as were most of the buildings over a thousand stellar orbits old, dating from the need then for shelters from the planetary weather before their science learned to control it. With luck, they could scatter so widely, that no one could be connected to the plot. Gamel and several others of the oldest members, however, chose to stay behind, their death (from their own explosives, taking the security clones with them) serving to prevent the Masters from ever finding out exactly who was present at the meeting. Zor and Musica were the first pair into the tunnels, but not before he wished Gamel good fortune in the afterlife.

The explosion came sooner than was planned; something must have happened back in the office, and Zor felt lucky that he and Musica had survived unscathed, as they had been knocked off their feet by the concussion. However, the suddenness of the explosion probably meant that all the others were either dead or dying, as their tunnel had been the only one that allowed standing movement from the center of the explosion, the others being crawlspaces. A further complication occurred when they approached Musica's quarters, to find the room occupied by security agents. Their best bet then became to go to Cabell, and have him be their alibi. This hope, too, faded when they were confronted by a curfew patrol shortly after leaving the tunnels, a block from the labs. They recognized Zor, and were about to let him pass when they were notified of the events cross-town, and were told to treat any curfew violators as part of the conspiracy.

"Surrender, Zor, and you will be spared."

"Never. I will not be used again."

"Very well." The Terminators raised their rifles to fire wounding shots, as their orders had been to only incapacitate Master-Level members of the conspiracy. However, Musica did not know this, and she tore herself from Zor's grasp and interposed herself between the guards and Zor as they fired. What would have been leg and shoulder shots hit her in the chest and creased her skull. She fell, mortally wounded.

"Musica, NO!" Zor dropped to his knees, and cradled her in his arms.

"My love..." Musica asked quietly, the blood starting to fill her lungs. "Would you have stayed with me forever?"

"Yes. I will always love you; always," he replied, sobbing, as he felt her cough, then go limp in his arms. He kissed her one last time, tasting the blood on her lips, then laid her down gently on the stonework street. "You will be avenged," he whispered.

"Zor," the guard repeated, caught off-guard by the girl's noble and quite unnecessary sacrifice; she had been on the list of "Capture Only" persons as well. "Will you surrender now?"

"Yes..." He said, lowering his head. "You have taken from me all that I have ever loved. I care not what happens to me from now on."

Again, Karen had that feeling of jamais vous, that this was something that wasn't quite right, not the way that it was supposed to have happened. And the blood; she had killed before, twice even in close quarters with nothing more than her powers. Yet something about Musica's death shook her down to her very core. She had to stop for ten minutes, to collect herself, and she found out from Cabell that she had actually said out loud both Zor and Musica's words from that last scene, in their voices, before letting out a plaintive wail in Zor's voice that shook HIM up. It was evidently the primal scream that went through Zor's mind as his love died in his arm, only vocalized by the entranced Karen. Karen readied herself, and went back into that world of memories.

Zor had learned what had happened to him the last time, and how to counteract it. So, when he was brought before the Masters and subjected to their processes again, he was able to fake his brainwashing, and began his last, ultimate plan. A plan that centered on the blue-green world of his recent recurring dreams, and would be forever changed by his actions.

He took his fortress, a prototype of the new monitor class he had designed for a biracial crew, and outfitted it for the seeding job that he knew lay ahead. He first went to Peryton, hoping that the presence of the Flowers would lift the Curse, only to be disappointed. From there he went to Karbarra, Praxis, Garuda, Haydon IV, and finally Spheris, taking up many years of his lengthened lifespan, but choosing to cold-sleep most of the time after a failed attempt to create an artificial companion. All the Inner Sphere worlds, he gave Flowers; but no Pollinators. As he sat in the farm complex set up on the surface to tend the Flowers, he watched the Flowers grow. He knew his end was coming soon.

Dolza was getting impatient, as the reports of the now-hostile Invid were coming in from the new Zentraedi units. His force here with Zor represented the last of the original line of custom-designed Zentraedi, and they hungered to return to the combat missions they had been programmed for. They had been the ones who had originally stripped Optera, and it was Dolza's opinion that only his men could finish the job, as the others MUST be incompetent if they couldn't beat such weak foes. His loud proclamations to this fact were starting to annoy Zor, but he knew Dolza would soon learn the truth.

The Invid had discovered his seeding mission, and Zor knew that they would catch him this day in their attempt to regain the Flowers, and kill him. A fitting punishment for his crimes against them, he thought. However, the fortress and its supply of seeds would not be here for them. He had sent it away, toward the world of his visions, crewed by a handful of select Zentraedi he had freed from the Masters' programming. Remarkably, it had only taken the songs of Musica and his mother to do so. How ironic.

His reverie was broken by the klaxons warning of the Invid's arrival, and the bellowing of Dolza as he discovered the fortress was nowhere to be found. Dolza actually had the nerve to threaten Zor in order to find the location of the ship. Zor obliged him, somewhat.

"I have sent it away, to a place far removed from this evil, senseless war. It is already nearing the edge of the gravity well, and will fold long before the Invid would have a chance to attack it."

"Sent it where? If I weren't sworn by my warrior oath to protect you, I would kill you now for your insolence!"

"I don't expect you to understand, "Zor replied, then paused. "You were created to fight the Invid; THAT is what you must do. GO! Fulfill your Zentraedi imperative!" He then ducked for cover instinctively as the ground base's wall collapsed under the attack of the Invid. The Zentraedi protecting him was hit by a ball of plasma, and he was caught by its fringe. Zor knew he was dying, just as he had foreseen. He could hear one of the Zentraedi crying out "Zor is down! Save Zor!", then Dolza calling out for Breetai, the truest of the warrior Zentraedi he had helped create. Zor had wanted to convert Breetai, but never had the chance. Somehow, he knew, in those last moments of his life, that someone else would. He again saw the world that had called out to him, where his ship was now heading, and a phoenix of energy rising from the planet, passing into another dimension. He cried at the sight.

"Zor, if you die, the mission is over and I must return, in defeat and humiliation." Good old Dolza, putting his code and career before everything. Couldn't he see that there was no way he could comply?

"I have thwarted the Robotech Masters' plan to control the universe." Zor paused again, struggling to breathe. "But a greater, finer mission is only beginning, Dolza..." He coughed again, and died.

Karen came to with a start, then proceeded to wake up Rem. She looked at Rem, and felt mixed feelings, of both reverence and attraction, to him. She shook her head, trying to shake those feelings from her mind, with no success. She had Rem leave before she began talking to Cabell.

"Cabell, that was... interesting."

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Yes, and more. I see now that there was no way that we could have negotiated with the Masters. Also, I found out why Zor was so determined in his mission. Musica meant everything to him."

"Actually, Karen, you remind me a lot of her."

"I noticed that myself. She was quite a woman, huh? Zor was ready to handle anything, except her death. When she died, he lost the will to fight a battle that he himself would survive. He could have delivered the ship to Earth personally, but chose to die instead of live without her."

"That's why I created Rem; to give Zor a second chance at life, untainted by the Masters."

**Chapter Nine:**

"Why do I feel this way toward Rem? Is it a side-effect of watching Zor's life with Musica, or something much more personal? I don't know how to proceed from here; in fact, it scares me."

- Diary of Karen Ellison (Freeman)

**Arrival +46 hours (12/14/2021*)**

Scott was in his Alpha, and Marie in their Beta; the same mecha he had brought back from the other universe years before, and that they had piloted together over Brasilia. It was one of the few ties Scott had left to the Korra'ti mission.

"Marie, you ready back there?"

"I'm still not comfortable with Uncle Rick flying with us this mission. He's been out of combat too long. Other than that, I'm fine."

"He should be okay, as long as we keep his ass covered. I'm just glad we got to drop the color crap and go back to our old designations; right, Highlander Two?"

"Roger, Highlander One," she replied, snapping off a mock salute to her husband. "It's too bad Karen's too caught up in her work with the Tiresians to join us."

"Yeah; she'd be glad to know she doesn't have to put up with the 'Green Giant' jokes anymore. Excuse me for a sec while I check in." Scott flipped over to the tactical frequency, and hailed Max. "Highlander One to Skull Leader; how much longer, Max?"

"You'll be sorry you asked. Control just picked up a block party of bandits, coming in wall to wall from our nine to our three."

"ROG-er Skull Leader."

"Talk about your TRE's," Rick commented. "They'll be all over us."

"Come, now, Admiral," Scott called back. "Whatever happened to the overconfident Rick Hunter I keep hearing all the SDF-1 vets talking about?"

"He got promoted to his level of incompetence," Max quipped back, then got serious. "Everyone, stay on your toes. Just take them as they come, and don't try anything fancy."

"Roger, Max," Rick said, peeling off. "We're ready to engage."

"Okay, Max," Scott called on a side channel. "Let's go after him before he gets hurt. Lisa'd kill us if he gets banged up."

"Don't we know it. Highlander One, you and Two cover his nine; Mir and I will take his three. If you outshoot us, I'll buy you dinner."

"Don't think I'm going to reciprocate, Max. You could outshoot me with your sensors down and your canopy blacked."

"I'm not THAT good. Get your mind back on the enemy."

"Yes Sir, 'Dad'."

"Stop That!"

"Y'know, Scott, you should stop bugging Daddy," Marie commented from the Beta.

"It's my second-favorite hobby. Heads up, cutie." Scott launched a spread of missiles in a blanket pattern, destroying a small flock of armored scouts. "I'm going to B&B mode. You'll have the flight controls in 5 seconds."

"Got it." The Alpha mechamorphed into Battloid mode, still attached to the Jet-mode Beta, with one gun pod in each hand. "I was wondering why you brought two of those."

"Let me give you a hint," Scott replied, spraying the guns at a trio of Shock Troopers. "How's that?"

"Impressive. Uh-oh."

"What is it?"

"Rick's still fighting the first wave, and the second is almost to him."

"Fire your submunitions in a diamond formation into the second bunch; that'll slow them down."

"They're on their way!" They watched the missiles streak in, then split into four missiles each, the resulting overlap taking out eight of a flight of twelve. "I think he can handle the rest. By the time they get in, he'll be through with the others."

The battle raged on for another half-hour, before the remaining enemy transport ships suddenly self-destructed, and the Invid autonomous mecha went dead. The remaining living Invid seemed to stop as if they were puppets with cut strings, and were easy targets.

"Hey Max, what's up?"

"I think Wolfe and Benson found the Brain."

"Good. Max, you don't look too good. Marie and I will escort Rick's bird in, and you and Miriya can go on in. It's a turkey shoot from here on in."

"Roger, Highlander. To all pilots; If you are damaged to Level Two or more, head back in; everyone else, stay out and shoot the Invid mechs before they reactivate. And, before you ask, no, you won't get kill credit for the mop-up."

"Captain, that's no fun," Skull Seven spouted, touching off a squadron wide giggle fit.

**Chapter Ten:**

"Be careful what you wish for; you just may get it."

- Common Terran saying

**Arrival +18 days (12/30/2021*)**

Two weeks had passed by since defeat of the Invid occupation forces on Tyrol. Skull Squadron and Breetai's forces had been doing flyovers of wastelands outside Tiresia, and the cities that had been abandoned when the Masters left for Earth, but only a handful of survivors were found. Remarkably, there were more than ten times as many Terrans as Tyroleans on Tyrol, thanks to the Invid. Rick was released from the infirmary five days after the battle, after undergoing treatment for a concussion and lots of bruises, including the one on his ego. Max fared better, only requiring outpatient treatment for his aches and pains. After his release, Rick held a news conference, explaining to the mission personnel and Tyrolean survivors what had occurred in the mission so far, from their arrival to the damage inflicted on the SDF-3 by the Invid. Edwards' boobytrap was ignored, as to not muddy things more than they already were.

Karen began spending most of her time with Janice and Rem, instead of squadron duty (where she wasn't really needed at the time). Rare was it when she wasn't in the company of one or both of the two. It was as she spent this time that she noticed Janice seemed to know more about Tiresia than she should. She then realized that it was quite likely that Janice was built with the remains of the android Zor had built, if not actually the intact android. When asked, Lang confessed that all he had really done to "create" Janice was to reassemble the body, and over several years program a Terran personality into the CPU, as he couldn't access the original programming, if it even still existed. Karen put her gut feelings to the test, by calling in Janice for a "chat session".

"Janice, code Rubicon."

"Awaiting your command, Karen," Janice said, switching over to her interface mode.

"Access stored information on Tiresian society."

"Accessed."

"Besides the historical programming by myself and Dr. Lang, do you have any information on Tyrol that predates Dr. Lang's first commands to you?"

"Negative... correction, there is an inaccessible data bank, predating the Super Dimensional Fortress' arrival on Earth."

"Why is the bank inaccessible?"

"A password is needed to recall data, and activate enclosed programs."

"Was this data placed by Zor?"

"Unknown, but highly probable. Zor was the original creator and programmer of this unit."

"Fine. Attempt access of this data block, the password is 'Musica'."

"Access granted..." Janice processed for a while, then she locked up. Her holographic and cybernetic appearance systems kicked in, as her hair turned a deep green, and her facial features began to change. Even her voice changed. "Where... Where am I?" she asked tentatively, in Tiresian.

"Oh my God, it worked. Janice, are you all right?"

"Who is Janice? Where is Zor? Who are you?"

"My name is Karen; and you are...?"

"Musica... At least, I think that's my name..."

"You're not the real Musica, you know."

"Yes I - No, I'm not. Musica is dead. Zor created me as a companion in her image, in an attempt to recreate the relationship he had with her. He didn't have a sufficient cell sample to clone her, and the mental scan he used to program me was incomplete; it was part of the one the Masters did of her, but he was only able to get part of it before the Masters noticed his intrusion into their computer system. He tried to compensate with his own recollections of her."

"It didn't work, did it?"

"No. I believed it for a while, but there were gaps in my memory that shouldn't have been there. What finally brought it to a close was an accident that I had that would have been fatal for a true human, but didn't hurt me. Zor was almost as glad for the pretense to finally end as I was to find out the truth; living that lie had been much harder than he thought it would be. Despite my possessing most of her memories and personality, and looking exactly like her, he still knew I was not the real Musica, and all my presence did was remind him of it. He then reprogrammed me to be a remote unit for the ship's computer, with its own persona and visual appearance, before he departed on his mission to seed the other worlds. I never had the chance to tell him the hidden message that Cabell had inserted into my coding, that I was only supposed to reveal to him once we were far enough away from Tyrol for me to tell him safely. Cabell had gained access to Musica's genetic profile, that the Masters had taken to clone her for her own needs, and that he was attempting to steal a copy of the brain scan of her corpse. I never got a chance to tell him the news."

"Can you access the other data files in your system? The ones belonging to the Janice persona?"

"It should be no problem, seeing as we are the same operating system. Yes, I have them. I was found in a storage closet in Zor's quarters - what became the SDF-1 bridge and Captain's quarters in the refit on Earth - and was reprogrammed by Dr. Lang. I see other information in her lab files from Lang as well. I must go; this is not my place."

"Why?"

Janice/Musica put her hands on Karen's face. "I must purge myself. Janice has her own life to lead; she has a full, if mostly false, past. I am but a shadow of a woman who died many years ago. The quirks of the Masters' Zentraedi program have come home. Janice, code Rubicon," she said to herself. "Activate main program in 30 seconds, purge Musica Database, code Regis."

"Quirks? What quirks?"

"After the Masters took their samples for creating their muses, Cabell took a sample of Musica's DNA, and included it in the Zentraedi program. He hoped that it would have a balancing effect on the Zentraedi mindset, as she was such a peaceful person."

"So?"

"You are what should have been, child. Goodbye, my granddaughter."

"Granddaughter? Musica, wait!" Karen cried out, but Janice had already reemerged.

"Who?"

"Never mind, Janice. Never mind." Karen sat down, trying to handle this new, shocking information. Just when she thought she knew everything about herself, she was again shaken to the core.

**Chapter Eleven:**

"Some have compared the Sentinels Campaign to the Pacific Theatre of World War Two. The SDF-3 corresponds to Pearl Harbor, the 'planet-hopping' to the 'island-hopping' of the Marines and General MacArthur, and so on. However, one has to go to the other major theatre of that war to find counterparts of the Sentinels in the expatriate forces operating out of England for the Allies, and the backstabbing of the Sentinels mission has no counterpart at all on the Western Allies side, only in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in the early months of the war."

- Susan Graham, Narration of Protoculture's Privateers: SDF-3, Farrago, Sentinels and the REF

**Arrival +19 days (12/31/2021*)**

The New Year's party started out with a concert by Minmei, Janice, Kayra and Karen, performing their various hits from back on Earth. Kayra, who had three albums in the mid-teens, hadn't performed publicly since 2017, and was a bit rusty, but the crowd loved them all. After three hours, the four (who had been doing duets and old girl-group songs in addition to their own songs) left the stage to a standing ovation, and the band played on, switching to dance music. Minmei went to join Wolfe, while Kayra rejoined her husband Shannon at the table assigned to Highlander. Karen and Janice both ran down Rem, and were trading dances with him. He picked up the Terran styles quickly, with Janice doing the teaching, as she was programmed to teach dance, and had toes that could withstand a clumsy Zentraedi's missteps. Soon, the trio attracted a crowd of viewers, especially when Janice taught Rem the tango.

Scott and Marie were already on the dance floor, mainly dancing to the slower offerings. During the faster pieces, they would sit back and watch the others. Scott remembered, faintly, that Rem and Janice were lovers in the other universe, even after he found out her true nature. Seeing Karen show interest in the young clone, he wondered how long the triad would last before human possessiveness (which even Janice was programmed with) caused it to break up.

"You're watching Karen, huh?"

"Yeah. I hope that she isn't counting on Janice being an android in order to win Rem over. As I remember correctly, the other universe's Rem didn't care."

"She's a grown girl, Scott, even if she's only four years old by the calendar."

"Yeah, but she inherited her sexuality from 'Mr. & Mrs. Kinky' over there," he replied, pointing to Shannon and Kayra, who were in the process of trying to find a place to be alone. Surely, they wouldn't try anything under the Admirals' table?

"You've got a point. By the way, you said bugging Daddy was your second hobby. What's your first?"

"Do you have to ask?" he replied, the look in his eyes saying everything.

"Oh, you, you..Mmm..." Her comment was smothered as he kissed her. When he came up for air, she changed the subject. "Look; Rick and Lisa are getting ready to dance. Don't they look incredible in those dress uniforms?"

"Yeah. I'm surprised that Lisa didn't get married in uniform - Ouch!" He winced as Marie elbowed him in the ribs for that comment.

Suddenly, the festivities were rudely halted by Dr. Lang's announcement that an unidentified ship had entered the system. Lisa took immediate charge of the situation, and ordered everyone back to the ship.

"Well, here we go again," Scott sighed to his wife.

"At least it probably isn't the Invid."

"How would you know?"

"If it were hostile, do you think it would have returned to normal space that far out? Invid always fold directly into combat, according to Zentraedi records. That's because Zentraedi guns could take out the incoming ships before they could get close enough to attack their targets."

"True. Then, it has to be them."

"Them? The Masters?"

"No, the Sentinels. Have you ever read anything about World War Two?"

"Some; why?"

"Because those people coming in on that spacecraft are the local equivalent of the Free French and Polish units; refugee freedom fighters. Our fight is just beginning, but now we have allies."


	6. Book Two, Part Six

**Part Six: Fooling Yourself**

**Chapter One:**

"When all is said and done, only those who are truly willing to risk it all will succeed."

- Karen Freeman, The Plane Truth

**Arrival +19 days (12/31/2021*)**

Scott and Marie were the last to arrive at the TIC. They had gone first to Skull hangar, forgetting their orders detaching them from combat duty and reassigning them to the bridge area. As they entered, Exedore was identifying the alien ship as an amalgam of various cultures' ships.

"...So, they would be the last to fall to the Invid," Lisa said slowly.

"The last except for Tyrol. And all are worlds upon which the Invid Regis and Regent might wish to vent their anger," Exedore replied.

"Admiral Hayes; I'm sorry we're late," Scott interrupted. "I had another memory about the Sentinels. They are mostly the resistance leaders of the near planets, imprisoned it what amounted to the Regent's zoo, for lack of a better term. Their ship is that zoo."

"Are you sure, Commander Freeman?"

"Not entirely, but fairly sure. Of course, Admiral Hunter's group should still escort it in. By the way, here's a rough description of the alien races so you'll be ready for their appearance. First, Karbarrans are an ursine race, and are the most technologically active of the conventional races."

"Conventional?" Lisa asked.

"Carbon-based life forms. It will become clear later. Next are the Praxians. They are best described as giant amazons. Praxis is all-female, and are identical to humans except they average a foot taller than Earth norm, and as physically developed as both Zentraedi sexes combined. The Garudans are a vulpine race, with a need to breathe the biological symbiotes of their home planet's atmosphere. The Perytonians are humanoid, and have long horns on their head, which give somewhat of a satanic look. Think of them as humanoid antelope; it's interesting to note that at least one human culture had a demon called a peryton, that was a demon deer that cast a man's shadow."

"And the unconventional races?"

"There are two of these races. The first are the Spheresians. They are a silicon-based life form, crystalline, but have a humanoid form to emulate the legends of Haydon. The last race are the Haydonites themselves. They are a techno-organic life form and they reproduce by constructing their offspring; then giving them life by placing part of their own life force within their creation. If my memory serves me correct, it was a Haydonite whom you talked to earlier. Their form is like a limbless human torso, using repulsors and tractors to move themselves and items, with the sensors located in their head. It is said that they were the final creations of the god-like explorer Haydon, who visited all the local star systems, bringing with him civilization, if not actually uplifting the local indigenous life to sentience. What Haydon looked like, is unsure, though his vaguely human shape in all the imagery of the races he aided might connect him to the ancient humans that we believe might have founded Tyrol."

"Ancient humans?," Exedore said to Scott. "Do you care to explain this reference?"

"As you know, we set up two hidden redoubts on Earth, to be a last line of defense should another invasion or bombardment strike. One of them was in an ancient ruin I discovered four years ago, deep in the Brazilian side of the Andes mountains. Based on the information we found there, the people who lived there, from a long lost Earth civilization, fled into space with the fall of that civilization, and eventually settled on Tyrol, to become the ancestors of the Tyroleans. There was also a ship from the other culture on Earth that was destroyed at the same time, that we do not know the fate of. Perhaps, they might be the ancestors of the Praxians. We were hoping that comparative histories of the worlds here would shed some more light on the past of Earth. We were afraid that bringing it up back on Earth would potentially cause more problems than any answers that public knowledge of the discovery would provide."

"Captain Forsythe, you have the bridge," Lisa said to her exec. "Breetai, Exedore; you are to go down to the surface with me. Commander Freeman, you and your wife may accompany us, if you wish."

"We would be honored to, Admiral."

"Good. Each of you are to report to the shuttle bay in twenty minutes, in full dress uniform. We will be leaving the bay at 1300 sharp. If you are late, you will be left."

"Understand, Admiral," Scott replied, looking at his watch. It said 1237. Lisa wasn't kidding about leaving tardy persons behind. "Okay, Marie, let's get ready."

"Right behind you, lover." They saluted the Admiral, and double-timed off the bridge.

Karen and Rick were waiting for them when they arrived planetside. After the Sentinels' ship landed, Rick, Lisa, Breetai, Exedore, and Lang approached it unarmed. They were greeted by Veidt, one of the Haydonites. Soon, their welcomes turned into a conference between the earth forces and the aliens

"...Maybe you, in this REF, don't understand, but you would, I think, if you spent weeks or months in cages - animals, exhibits for the Invid's pleasure," L'ron growled to the council. His mate, Crysta, continued for him.

"We buried as space many more of us than survived; Such was the care the Invid meted out to us. You may ask why we survivors made a pact, to call ourselves the "Sentinels" - a Zentraedi term, and we hope you comprehend it. Sentinels; the watchmen. The sentries who say "This place, I protect! PROTECT WITH MY LIFE! Meddle here, and you start a war only one of us can survive. The Regent and his Invid have had their way! and now here is a war only one side can survive!" With that said, she dug her claws into the wooden table, carving deep grooves in the Tiresian wood.

Baldan of Spheris took up the appeal. "Will you help us? We need supplies, weapons, and allies."

"What is your plan?" Justine Huxley, one of the members of the diplomatic mission group, asked.

"First, to liberate Karbarra. There, we can reactivate the weapons mills and arm ourselves completely. Next, open the prison camps of Praxis where thousands upon thousands of warriors wish only to exact revenge for what has been done to them." As Baldan spoke the last, Bela nodded in agreement.

"Then we liberate Peryton!" Burak interrupted.

Baldan ignored him, then continued. "Eventually after Garuda and Spheris are freed, we'll have certain knowledge we require to free Haydon IV - and then we'll be ready for the campaign to liberate Peryton. In the course of the war, we will battle the Invid, of course - perhaps we will even defeat them. But if not, our united planets will hunt down the Regent and force him to surrender or die."

The room went totally silent. The look in the Sentinels' eyes told that all, even Burak, were behind Baldan in this. It was going to be either the Sentinels or the Invid; no middle ground.

"Thank you, Baldan, " Judge Huxley said, breaking the silence. The Plenipotentiary Council will now withdraw, in order to reach a decision on the Sentinels' request. We will reconvene here when our decision is finalized."

She and the eight other council members stood, and left the old senate chambers, which had been restored as the first project of the REF's reconstruction plan.

"Well, Scott, what do you think?" Rick asked.

"Well, Admiral, I think it's gonna be close. We came here to sue for peace, not start a 'second Robotech War.' However, personally, these people are fighting for the same freedoms millions of our forefathers fought and died for in the last 250 years. Maybe there aren't any nations on Earth anymore, not in the old sense, but those of us descended from America can't help but feel a kinship with the Sentinels. Sure, most of them are non-humans, but they are as much 'people' as any of us. Freedom is universal, as is the yearning for it. I, for one, can't stand by to watch them fight the Invid alone."

"Maybe you ought aught to go talk with the council. You certainly dispelled any doubts I had about an alliance."

"Maybe, but the UEG Faction of the council would be a lot harder to sway than an admiral already leaning toward aiding them."

"Admiral Hunter," L'ron cut in, "We were wondering if you and your subordinate here would want to tour of our ship."

"Sounds interesting. Have you asked my wife yet?"

"Yes. She said she would like to, as soon as the council returns its decision."

"Good. I'll go then as well. Scott, I can't speak for you; care to join us?"

"L'ron I would be honored to see the Farrago."

"You know our ship's name? I wasn't aware we had told it to any of your people as yet."

"You haven't, as far as I know. It's a long, confusing story about how I know of your ship. After the tour, I'll tell you the whole story, at least what I remember of it. Let's just say that this mission is my second trip to Tyrol, although it is both before and after my first trip."

"This I've got to hear human -" The conversation was cut short by warning klaxons.

"Confirmed enemy spacecraft approaching on definite attack vector, I say again, definite attack vector," a voice called out over the loudspeakers hooked in the REF's com net.

"There goes the neighborhood," Scott moaned.

**Chapter Two:**

"The Invid Pursuer Weapon was typical of its origin period. In the original war over control of the Protoculture, the sanctity of life was the first civilized concept to be chucked out the airlock."

- Cmdr. Marie Freeman (REF, Ret.) "To Justify the Right in All We Do: Protoculture's Effects on the Societies of Earth, Optera, and the Tyrolean Empire"

The enemy "spacecraft" was quickly identified by both the Sentinels and Zentraedi as a Pursuer, a homing device powerful enough to destroy an entire planet, and almost impossible to stop.

"...This is a weapon even the Zentraedi feared!" Exedore told Lisa. "Your GMU cannon, even the SDF-3's primary weapon - none of these have sufficient power to penetrate its shields! It is relentless, and once it finds it target...," he paused, then continued. "It will detonate with enough force to rupture Tyrol's crust."

"Yes," Baldan continued, sadly "Since its seeking mechanism is locked onto our ship, there is only one answer: We shall lead it away, into deep space once more, and try to deal with it there."

"Is that any way for allies to talk?" Judge Huxley interrupted, having heard the debate as she came out of the council meeting. "The Sentinels and the REF are now officially involved. The vote was five to four."

Exedore got emotional(?) over the announcement, kissing her hand, then nearly fainting after realizing what he had done.

Rick had an insight. "If the SDF-3's main gun and the GMU's and the VT ordinance aren't enough to zap the pursuer what about throwing everything at it at once? We can lead it into the cross-fire with the Sentinels' ship."

"It may just work, Admiral, " Exedore replied quickly going over the variables in his head. "Besides, it's our only chance, isn't it?"

"Don't remind me," Rick turned to Lisa, and found that she was already ordering the SDF-3 into position for the ambush.

"Somebody will have to go along with the aliens, Admiral," Major Riley interjected, hinting that he wanted to be the one.

""Forget it, Major. You help Benson and Adams look after the TIC and Ghost Team." Rick turned to Lisa. "Admiral, I'm the logical one to go."

"Affirmative, but take the Freemans with you." She looked over to Scott and Marie.

"Yes, Ma'am," he said, saluting his wife. He then turned to his friends. "C'mon, you two; we've got lives to save!"

"Right behind you, Admiral, " both said in unison, running up the boarding ramp after him.

Aboard the Farrago, they had little time to look around; but what little they saw was amazing. Half the tech they saw was unrecognizable, and much the rest looked straight out of the Steam Age. Before questions could be asked, they found themselves crammed into an elevator. Shortly afterward, they were on the bridge, an elongated dome at the piece work ship's 'main' fuselage.

"Gorgeous, isn't it?" L'ron boasted. "It's Karbarran, of course."

"Of course," Scott agreed aloud, looking at the immense ship's wheel.

"Sentinels' flagship, do you copy?" Lisa's voice came over the commo. Others parted from the transceiver to allow Rick to answer.

"This is the Farrago, reading you five-by-five, admiral. When does the party start?" A chuckle went through the ship.

"We're ready when you are," Lisa replied, then she gave them the battle plane, based on old Zentraedi data.

Rick repeated the orders, then the Farrago lifted off. "We still owe each other that waltz, Lisa," Rick said.

"You rat! Watch your tail!"

"Don't worry, Admiral," Scott called out, "We'll keep him clear of any farmer's wives for you."

"Huh? Cute, Scott," Rick took a second to catch the reference, but the Sentinels were totally lost to the joke. "We'll explain later, L'ron. Let's fry this thing before it fries us."

"Agreed. Lift-off is in five of our seconds."

The Farrago lifted from the battle-scarred remains of Tiresia, rising toward space, and the Pursuer. Twenty miles up, the ship did a lumbering wingover, and began dropping back into the lower atmosphere.

"Was this trip really necessary?" Scott gasped, hanging onto a guardrail near the ship's wheel. The wingover had produced effects that normally would have been compensated for in a smaller ship, but were impossible to completely, offset in a large ship. In other words, he was nearly sent flying across the room from the momentum. He wasn't alone; only the Karbarrans and Haydonites remained stable during the maneuver.

"Had to get it to follow us directly into the ambush," L'ron growled over the seconds of reentry. "They track Protoculture, you see. That's how we could keep the Pursuer at bay for so long; we don't RUN on Protoculture."

"W-what do you run on?" Rick managed to stutter through the vibrating bridge.

"Peat."

"Peat?" Scott and Marie asked simultaneously.

"One of our little secrets."

"How can it track us now?"

"We set up a Protoculture homing device in the center of the ship."

Huh? Listen, L'ron: I've been doing some thinking, and -" He was cut off by rough bounce from the atmosphere, then continued." - and if this Pursuer of yours had the kind of warhead you're talking about, we're gonna end up fried right along with it when the SDF-3 and the GMU start blazing!"

"Do you think we're stupid?"

"No-no-no," Rick replied weakly.

"Watch and learn. You're right! It's almost time to go! Well! Tell your mate and your people! That thing will be in their laps in another minute!"

"What are you talking about? It's following us!"

"No time to explain! Hold on!"

The Farrago split into its many component craft, which scattered away from their former positions. All that remained was the Protoculture beacon which continued into the convergent point of the Humans' weapons, then stopped to await the Pursuer. All the weapons fired and missiles impacted, overloading the Pursuer's shields and destroying it.

While L'ron was overseeing the reformation of the Farrago, one of the Praxians was tending to Rick's bloody nose he had gotten in the earlier shakeups.

"This ship is amazing, Bela," Scott said, looking over her shoulder as she worked on Rick. "Who built her?"

"Yeah," Rick added. "And how did you come to form an alliance like this, if you were kept separately?"

"We didn't create this situation," Burak interrupted. "The INVID did, by imprisoning us together. It was inevitable that we would join together."

"But how did you turn the tables?" Everyone went quiet, then Veidt answered.

"I think you'd better come with us. It would be more to the point to show you... certain things... then to talk about them."

**Chapter Three:**

"Never give a sucker an even break." - attributed to P.T. Barnum

**Arrival +21 days (1/02/2022*)**

The "certain things" mentioned was actually one thing: a captive Invid called Tesla. Something nagged Scott about the creature, a half-memory of a Tesla not in chains, but roaming free among the Sentinels on Haydon IV. He almost mentioned it, but decided not to. Rick started a discussion of the Invid situation with Veidt that confirmed what Scott and Marie had said earlier. The Sentinels were refugees, like the Free French, looking for an outside force to help liberate their worlds.

Soon, meetings were called to determine what was to happen with the aid to the Sentinels. The result was, as many had foreseen, that a good part of the SDF-3's forces were to be seconded to the Farrago, including Skull Squadron, the Ground Mobile Unit and its GMU/Titan command vehicle. All of Highlander would be going, save Karen, whom Dr. Lang wanted to hold in reserve as an ally on Tyrol, along with Minmei. One of the interesting result of the many tests Lang had run on Karen is that she could serve the same function as Janice in amplifying the powers of Minmei's Voice. Scott, for one felt better knowing that she was to stay behind, as she was often well, too DIRECT in her actions toward him and her parents. One day, her cover was going to be blown, although she didn't really seem to care.

He had already loaded his and Marie's gear aboard the Farrago, and had returned to the bridge area to say goodbye to a few of his friends in the TIC. As he passed the door to the Hunters' soon-to-be-former quarters, he heard the two talking to each other.

"You and I are married; we're mates for life," Lisa said. Scott got the feeling he shouldn't enter right away. "Husband and wife."

He finally got up the courage and stuck his head in the doorway. "Hello, there, admirals," he said in a silly voice, "Have you heard about the kingdom of Jehovah?"

"Cute, Freeman," Rick replied, drying his tears and making himself a little more presentable. "What do you want?"

"I was hoping that you two would pose for a few photos I was planning to send back to Tisiphone on the old Zentraedi fleet freqs."

"How personal do you want them to be?" Rick asked.

"Well, they're your old friends, so you be the judge."

"Who's our old friends?" Lisa asked Rick, putting him on the spot for Scott's slip-up.

"Oh, just some people we served with back in Macross. Retired Skull and odd shift bridge crew."

"Really? We must see them when we get back to Earth someday. You know, we should have invited them to the wedding."

"Actually, The were at the first shower, in Vegas, but were too busy to come to the wedding. "Scott said, as Rick gave him his "Shut up or I'll cycle you out an air lock right now" look.

"Okay Scott; how's this?" Lisa grabbed Rick in a headlock and started giving him a noogie. "Call it 'Admiral Hayes administering punishment for failure to salute a superior'."

"Great! They'll love it!" Scott snapped the picture. "Now one serious picture, for the morale people."

What do you mean?" she asked.

"Stand together, and try to think about how Roy and Claudia would have been proud of you two, if they could see you right now."

Rick gave Scott another one of those looks, but got into the picture. Scott took the vid film out of the camera unit, and placed it in the duplicator in the console of the vcom's multi-use screen. "Here you go," he said, placing the original in Rick's hand. "That's your copy; I'll keep one copy for myself, and transmit the other."

"Good, just don't let that first picture get out of your hands."

"What? Don't worry; it's safe with me," Scott said, heading for the radio room. As he transmitted the message, he took the extra copy he had made and slipped it into an envelope addressed to the MBS representative in the diplomatic corps, with instructions to not watch it until after the Farrago departs. "Suckers," he muttered to himself.

Karen still couldn't believe that she had been ordered to stay behind. "Who do they think they are, to think they can keep me from the Sentinels?" she thought aloud. She slipped aboard the Farrago, leaving an assortment of her gear in various concealed places. She was almost caught as she left, as Jack Baker and Karen Penn came into the armory where she had hidden the last of her things. She couldn't use her powers to escape, as she had to save all her strength for later. So she hid, and watched the fireworks.

"...And I have a first dan in Uichi-ryu karate. Want proof?" Penn yelled, falling into a opening stance.

Jack totally lost it. "You just offered the wrong thing to the wrong guy on the wrong day, MEATHEAD!" He started ripping off his harness to get more loose. "I'll mail your dog tags to your daddy!"

"That does it! Where do you want your corpse shipped, moron?"

Karen was starting to enjoy it when Admiral Hunter interrupted the festivities. Karen's inheritance from her parents also had included their sexual tastes, and all evidence she had indicated that fights like these often soften into bouts of a highly different nature, and she wasn't the kind who didn't like to watch. Oh, well.

"Uh-Hum."

"A-admiral Hunter!"

A nostalgic look came over Rick's face as he spoke to them. "As you were. Pardon the interruption, Ensigns, but G-1 just cut the orders, and as I was coming aboard anyway to settle in, I thought you'd want to know." He handed the two their papers and new insignia. "We can't have ensigns assigned to the Sentinels; it muddles the chain of command. Congratulations, Lieutenants."

They just stood there for a second, almost in shock. Slowly, they shook it off, and saluted him.

"Carry on," Rick said, returning their salutes and leaving.

The two turned to each other, and replaced each others' insignia, then saluted and shook hands.

"Congratulations, Lieutenant," Penn said.

"Same to you, Lieutenant," Jack echoed.

Karen thought they were getting off too easy. Besides, they didn't have a chance to express how they felt about each other. Could she spare the time and energy? Oh, what the hell. She stopped the two in mid-sentence; they would be totally unaware of the next ten minutes. She stepped out and locked the door. Nine minutes later she stepped out of the room, imagining in her head what might happen when the two find out that they're wearing each others' underwear. "Karen, girl, you really need to get some serious help," she muttered to herself as she left the ship.

**Chapter Four:**

"There comes a time in every person's life when it becomes necessary to be insubordinate in the Line of Duty." -Karen Freeman

"Kyle?"

"I thought I told you to never bother me again."

"I know, but I needed to talk with someone. You see, I'm going with the Sentinels."

"How? They've already left the surface of Tyrol."

"Remember my powers, Kyle? I can leave to join them any time I want to, at least before they engage their pseudo fold drives."

"Pseudo fold?"

"Their drives are powered by Sekiton, not Protoculture. It takes true Protoculture to have a true fold, as we know it. What you get with Sekiton is something closer to a subspace drive, like out of old TV shows; much slower. Anyway, I want you to give this to Dr. Lang for me. It's my farewell message, so to speak. It is my destiny to go on this mission; I've known this all my life. Take care of Minmei for Janice and me, okay?:

"I'll try, Karen. By the way, have you seen her?"

"She was in the enlisted lounge, the last I saw her. She was contemplating drowning her sorrows in a major way."

"You think she would have learned what that leads to, from our last months together."

"She may not have done it, though, go on up and check on her. I'll cover for you until I have to leave."

"Dr. Lang won't like your leaving."

"Emil can go to hell, for all I care. My place is with my family, not babysitting 'little miss rock star,' and that's where I'm going to be."

"Karen, what's gotten into you all of a sudden?"

"You know that there's only one real-time transmitter to Earth, don't you?"

"Yes; it doesn't have a return circuit, though."

"But there is a relay circuit, that uses some old Zentraedi automated stations. It should take only a few seconds to receive a reply. Kyle, no-one's answering!"

"Could it be a malfunction, either in a relay station or on Earth?"

"No. Both relays are functional, but the signal is being mirrored back as if there was no one manning the receivers. Something's wrong on Earth, and we can't do a damn thing to find out what. At least with the Sentinels, I won't have any time to worry about Noel and Dana."

"I'll keep trying for you, Karen, if you want."

"Thanks, but you needn't bother. I have a feeling I know who's behind the interference, and if I'm right, you'll never get an answer. Go ahead, check on Minmei. The time is nearing for me to leave."

"I'll send you a message, if I can, to tell you how she is."

"What kind of message?"

"You'll know when I do."

She knew, all right, when a very different Minmei than she had ever heard came over all REF frequencies, including the intercoms. The song pulled at her, awakening the dreams once again. As the song ended she concentrated on Marie, and teleported.

"Engage superluminal drives in three seconds in two...one..." L'ron grumbled.

"Hi, there!" Karen said, blipping in behind her friend and hugging her.

"Karen! What are you doing here?" Marie yelped, pulling away from her. "You were supposed to stay behind!"

"Lieutenant Ellison, explain yourself!" Rick demanded. "You were ordered to stay on Tyrol. Why have you disobeyed orders?"

Scott looked around. Everyone was staring at Karen, who had appeared out of nowhere. There was no way they could explain this away, not after that entrance.

"I didn't want to stay behind. My place is with this mission, and both you and Dr. Lang know that. In a sense, I am heading home. Don't deny me that!"

"Well, you're stuck with us, regardless of what I want. I don't think the Sentinels would turn around now, even if we asked them."

"We wouldn't ," Veidt said. "Tell me, Lieutenant, how you managed to get aboard the Farrago without boarding by conventional means."

"It's a long story, but it was bound to come out sooner or later. I want the others in Highlander Team present before I start. After all, we have a few days."

"Lieutenant," Lisa added, "I'll remind you that I'm in command here, at least over the human contingent. I know your background, as does Admiral Hunter. Your little "news conference" can wait until later, at 2100. Until then, I want you to report the Spherisian section's brig, and place yourself under arrest. You can use it for your meeting tonight, with Baldan's permission, and whether or not you stay under arrest I'll leave up the Sentinels' council as a whole."

"Yes, ma'am," Karen said, as she saluted, then she left the bridge. Most of the Sentinels on the bridge were still staring.

"Baldan, I'm sorry for throwing this all into your lap," Lisa said apologetically. "I needed someplace more removed from here, and your section fit her needs best."

"I understand. However, what I overheard intrigues me. She is an atypical member of your race, I assume."

"Very atypical. You will learn just how different she is if you go to the briefing. Are you familiar with how long it takes a normal non-clone human to mature?"

"Quite a long time, I've heard."

"How old do you think Lt. Ellison is?"

"About twenty of your years, give or take."

"Would you believe me if I told you she's been part of the military for over three years, but she just celebrated her fourth birthday? A normal half year-old doesn't speak or walk at that age; she was already adult and joining the military behind her parent's back."

"Amazing," they heard Veidt say behind them.

"Now, let's get back to our plans for Karbarra. You both can hear the whole story later, from her. By the way, Commander Freeman," Lisa called over to Scott, "Are you going to be at the meeting?"

"I guess so. I've got to be there to see how Shannon handles it."

"Shannon?" Veidt asked.

"Scott's brother, and Karen's father;" Rick answered. "Karen's real name is Karen Freeman."

"And Commander Freeman knew that all along."

"How did you know?"

"I could tell by his reactions to her arrival. This should be an interesting night."

**Chapter Five:**

"Hello mudda, hello fadda.." -Mid 20th century novelty song

**In transit, January 2022***

"I've called you here to tell you my story, and why I've risked my life and career to join you, "Karen said to the assembled group. All of Highlander Group was present, as were Crysta, Bela, Kami, Veidt, Sarna, and Baldan.

"First, I want to tell Shannon and Kayra the secret I've been hiding from them for all these years. You see, I'm... I'm their daughter."

"You - You're our what?" Shannon stuttered. Kayra wasn't doing much better, staring at Karen as if she had seen a ghost.

"My true name is Karen Noel Freeman. Mother, remember when Dana and I were kidnapped? When I used my powers to save us, I started growing again and before I could stop growing, I was an adult physically."

"Your powers?" both Shannon and Kami asked.

"Father, you already know the first part of this, but these Sentinels have not heard it. It all started with the mission to the wreckage of the Zentraedi ship Korra'ti, which had crashed on Earth's moon after the defeat of Dolza's fleet."

"The Korra'ti?" Crysta asked. "That ship used to be part of the Masters' police force on Karbarra. What happened to the crew?"

"Many died, but those in cryosleep and others who abandoned ship survived. It was the navigator, R'ykandar, who led Highlander back to it, to salvage material to use in construction of the SDF-3. To salvage it meant that they had to restore power to the ship to fly it to the Earth's captured factory satellite. However, there was a slight problem with the return journey. Commander?"

"I guess I should continue, having lived this part," Scott said. "In our haste to repair the ship, we forgot to check the condition of the fold systems. It turned out that an emergency fold had been programmed into the ship's navigation console, but not engaged. When power was restored, the resetting breakers set off the fold at an altitude of 10 miles above the surface, and we had no way of shutting them back down. Worse, the coordinates were scrambled by the original power loss."

"Where did the fold take your group, Commander?" Baldan asked.

"Well, to start with, the fold lasted ten days, by which time half of us had used up our air in the mecha. The Korra'ti itself had no atmosphere, as life support systems were destroyed, and our transport had ran out as well, but not before Shannon and Kayra had... well... conceived. In simpler terms, Kayra had become pregnant." He let that sink in for a second.

"The ship defolded, and we had absolutely no idea where we were. The ship barely had enough energy for reentry, and we were lucky enough to defold above an inhabited planet. Unfortunately, the inhabited planet was Garuda, but not your Garuda, Kami. It was the Garuda of a parallel universe, and the date was about one year later than today. The Veritechs and R'ykandar's Power Armor ran out of air after landing, and we had to expose ourselves to the _hin_-laden air to survive. We later awoke on Haydon IV, being treated for acute _hin_ exposure."

"After a series of battles we have been trying in vain to remember, we somehow were able to take the Korra'ti home. Karen, back to you."

"The doctors on Earth were taken by surprise by my mother's pregnancy. Not only had I been conceived during a fold BETWEEN DIMENSIONS, I had been exposed, through my mother, to the _hin_. Although a normal human pregnancy lasts nine months, Mother and I were hardly normal humans. Mother was, and still is, one of the few Zentraedi besides Miriya Sterling to have a child. However, I was born the size of a much older child, including the developmental features of such a child. By the time that I was five months old chronologically, I was five YEARS old physically. Due to my exposure to the _hin_ in the earliest stages of my development in my mother, I had gained many mental powers, including telepathy. As a result, I knew everything that my parents had ever learned, as well as things I later 'acquired' from Dr. Lang and others. Several events happened that forced me to use my other powers, powers I still can't explain. One extreme use started me aging even faster, so that I was an adult both physically and mentally at the age of six months.

"I knew I could not return to Shannon and Kayra like this, so I used what I had picked up from Lang's mind to reprogram the Factory Satellite's Protoculture chamber to halt my aging and to make a clone of myself, the same age physically as I had been the last time they had seen me. I gave her my childhood memories, but left out knowledge of our powers. Also, she would age normally from then on. The Sterlings' child, Dana, had become entangled in the mess as well. She had been my best friend in my short childhood, and I was lonely as an adult. So I made an adult clone of her, and named the clone Marie. She later married my uncle and is with us here." She motioned toward Marie, then continued.

"We later joined Highlander Group, in order to be closer to our parents, and we have been with them to this day. Within a year after our joining the group, the Hunters and Sterlings, due to discoveries made by Uncle Scott and Jean Grant, found out our true identities, as did Dr. Lang. It's been classified Top Secret ever since, so classified that I couldn't tell my parents, who were non-comms, who I really was." Tears came to her eyes, tears that were at least partially real, if not totally unforced, as she went to her parents and held them. Scott let them leave, then took over the meeting.

"As I said earlier, I, along with the Armanas, my sister, my brother and his wife, were all on this other Garuda and its corresponding Haydon IV and Tyrol. I met some of your counterparts there, and I feel like I know you already, if only I could remember the events of that trip. You see, there was someone back on Earth who somehow made all of us associated with the mission forget what happened. When I say all, I mean the six of us you've met, who were the Veritech pilots on the mission; the six technical personnel, who did not come on the SDF-3 mission; R'ykandar, who is in command of the Korra'ti; and all those involved in our debriefing. Even the records of the debriefings disappeared out of locked vaults. The real purpose of this meeting, at least what Karen told me, was to let me be able to talk with you, and possibly be able to remember what happened to me in the other universe."

"We'll try to help, Commander," Veidt said. "But we don't know how much we can help without the equipment on Haydon IV itself."

"Thank you Veidt. But something keeps nagging me about the trip to Haydon IV. I have no memories of the Farrago, and there were a lot less non-human Sentinels by that point than there are now. It gives me the creeps."

**Chapter Six:**

"I'm not really sure the Sentinels at first believed what we told them about our little group (Highlander), but they were soon to be convinced, first on Praxis, then Garuda. However, that didn't help things on Karbarra." -Scott Freeman, from interview in Protoculture's Privateers: SDF-3, Farrago,

Ark Angel, Sentinels, and the REF.

**15 February, 2022***

The next few weeks were busy with various duties, all of them important, but few of them simple or pleasant. The Perytonians, having heard the events of the meeting indirectly, steered clear of Highlander, Karen especially. The Praxians weren't much better, although they softened their attitude after one of them challenged Karen to a sparring match. Karen won quickly, even though the challenger was stronger, taller, and a seasoned veteran. By the time the Farrago arrived at Karbarra, Karen was probably the human most accepted by the Praxians.

Karen was on the bridge when the Farrago made the transition back to normal space, engaged in a discussion with Bela on sword fighting. So they were just as surprised as everyone else when the ship materialized in the middle of an Invid fleet.

"Oh my god!" they heard Lisa utter. "Battle Stations! We've come out in it, this time!"

"I read four troop ships and a command ship, Admiral," a tech called out. "What are your orders?"

She thought for a moment, then answered. "They haven't fired on us out of hand; that's a piece of luck we didn't have coming. Rick, I suggest we not scramble the VTs, at least not yet."

"They've got the drop on us."

"I don't think so, or they would've opened up right away; the Invid are a shoot-first type."

"Admirals," Scott piped in, "Could it be that we register as an Invid ship? After all, it was built under Tesla's direction."

"Veidt," Lisa called to the Haydonite. "How soon after the ship's completion did you revolt?"

"Almost immediately. It was such a sudden move that we were able to destroy the ships of our captors, but not before the Pursuer was launched."

"So the only Invid pursuing you was a robotic device? Do you think the Invid are still unaware of the mutiny, then?"

"It's quite probable. But how long will it take them to realize we're not Invid? It may depend on whether or not they notice your module on the ship. After all, it resembles nothing that any of our races would build."

"Admiral, we're receiving identification queries from the command ship," a Spherisian tech reported from the communications console.

"Ignore them; all we could do by answering would be to give ourselves away."

"But why are they approaching?" Veidt asked.

"They know what our weapons can do;" L'ron growled. "They know they have us outgunned."

"That's what they think," Lisa said, grabbing the intraship mike. "Patch me through to Commander Grant."

"Way to go," Rick whispered to his wife, then turned to Scott. "Freeman, take your family out there and get in some combat time. There's no use in you sitting around up here anymore."

"Yes, sir!" Scott said, saluting, then heading for the elevator alongside his wife and niece.

As the members of Highlander boarded their mecha, they felt the GMU shudder from the firing of its cannon, a miniature version of that on the SDF-3.

"Launch Fighters!" Rick called out over the tacnet, when it became clear that the Invid had begun to launch before their command ship had been destroyed. That meant the only way to stop the Invid would be to kill them.

"You heard the Admiral, Highlander," Scott called. "Karen, you're up first, then myself and Marie, then the rest of you. We're to cover Skull's right flank."

"Roger, Highlander One. I'm outta here!"

Scott flipped the brakes off, and the Legios shot out of the makeshift hangar. "Skull Leader, this is Highlander-One. We're at your eight, coming up fast."

"Roger, Highlander. Form up, we're only outnumbered ten-to-one out here. This should be easy," Max said flatly, but everyone saw through his humor, knowing that he was just as scared as they were.

"Skull Leader," Lisa came on the net, "Enemy element of six mecha has broken through your screen and is attacking the flagship."

"Roger, Farrago. Highlander Four, Skull Two, Skull Seven; intercept 'em."

"On our way, Skull Leader," Karen replied, peeling her Super VF-1 off from the formation, followed by the Valdezes, a brother-sister team in Max's squad within Skull; Henry in the Logan, Sarah in the Beta. Two Alphas, the Skull Seven team, tagged along.

A pincer was closing on Skull One, Miriya's red Alpha. Suddenly, Miriya flipped from Jet mode to Battloid, putting herself behind her pursuer, and blowing it apart.

"Good shot, Mom;" Marie called out to Miriya. "Watch this." Both Scott and Marie went to Battloid, separating the mecha. Marie grabbed the Alpha by the ankles, then started both mecha spinning head over heels, back to back. Between the two of them they shot the six armored scouts that had been pursuing them in as many seconds.

"Marie, you idiot! Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

"It worked, didn't it?"

"Daughter, if you weren't already grown, I'd spank you! Now fly like a sane person!"

"Yes, Mother."

"And you, Scott. You should know better! I ought to have the two of you thrown in the brig!"

"Mom, Look out!" Miriya had gotten so distracted by the barnstorming duo that she didn't notice more incoming Invid. Marie let loose a volley that blew up the unarmed Trooper mecha that had been poised to tear into her mother's Alpha.

"Huh? Thanks, Marie. But remember; combat is never a game, daughter. I learned that only after being defeated by your father. The Invid won't be as merciful."

Karen, along with the four others from Skull that accompanied her, were now positioned between the Farrago's bridge and the incoming Shock Troopers. Each of the others were going one-on-one, but Karen had hers outnumbered, two of them against one of her. She flipped her GU to semi-automatic, then dispatched both opponents with single shots through their sensor eyes. As all this took place within five seconds after the Invid came within range, Karen then turned to see how the others were faring. More Shock Troopers were approaching, and the two Alphas were only able to stop about half of them. The other incoming Invid were ignoring the Alphas, heading straight for the bridge, which was almost unguarded. The Valdezes were by the bridge area, but were busy with other Invid, the lone survivors of the first group. The Beta had just flamed one of the two troopers as it tried to circle around behind the Logan.

Turning her attention back to the incomings, she loosed two pair of her medium range missiles from the FAST packs, taking out both Troopers, who were concentrating on the bridge. Suddenly she heard cries from both the bridge and the Valdezes.

The last Shock Trooper had attempted a suicide attack on the bridge, only to be blocked. Instead, it turned its attention on the Logan, farther off. The Beta was panicking as it couldn't reach the Logan in time to help.

"Henry!" Sarah cried out. The Shock Trooper had just pulled a reverse on the Logan, and was trying to pull it apart.

Karen whirled, and fired by instinct. She had seen what was happening only in her mind, and had based her aim on that. Time seemed to crawl as the single burst from the GU streaked across the empty space. Suddenly, the shoulder area of the Trooper exploded in a cloud of green Protoculture distillate, and time restarted.

"Sarah, get him inside! He's got an air leak!"

"I... I got him, Karen. Thank you," Sarah gasped, as she stuck her Beta's arm guns into the sensor eye of the wounded Trooper and finished it off. Karen still couldn't figure out why so many other pilots chose to still wear the atmospheric-style uniform and helmets. Sure they were slightly more comfortable than the space flight suits and allowed more head movement, but that's no help if you take any damage to the cockpit. For that matter you couldn't eject in anything less than a sealed environmental suit or you'd burst like an overinflated balloon. As she had just heard Miriya say to Marie, war wasn't a game, and sacrificing safety for fun or comfort could mean sacrificing your life.

Karen's introspection was interrupted by a call from the Farrago.

"Highlander-Four, this is Admiral Hayes. You and Skull-Seven are being recalled, as of now. The Invid situation is well in hand, Good shooting, Lieutenant."

"Thank you, ma'am. I did what I had to do."

"Report to the bridge when you're aboard. Admiral Hunter and I would like to speak to you."

Karen mechamorphed back into Jet mode and headed in. "And I need to talk with you as well," she thought.

**Chapter Seven:**

"It was almost like going full circle for me. My grandfather's family were miners. Dad escaped from the mines, going to college and ending up on the Moon. But, there I was, on an alien planet, crawling through the mines on a military mission. I guess some things are hereditary." - Scott Freeman

"Karen, girl, what am I going to do with you," Lisa said to her in the private room. "I want to reward you somehow, but we've pretty much run out of such things. I can't promote you; Highlander's got too many officers as it is."

"It really isn't that important, Lisa. As I said before, I was only doing my job."

"I had your mecha checked. You only used four missiles and three shots to destroy five Shock Troopers. Also, your Veritech only shoots the types of missiles you used in multiples of two. That amounts to five single shots to get five kills, one of which was to save the life of another pilot. You deserve something special for what you did. On my authority, you are hereby awarded the Gloval Medal of Valor for going beyond the call of duty to save lives as well as our limited ammo supplies." Lisa pinned the metal to Karen's uniform, and saluted her. Karen saluted back, then Lisa continued.

"I want you to monitor the strategy meeting in a few minutes. Something's wrong with the Karbarrans. They seem to have something bothering them. I want to see if you can pick up on what the problem is."

"I'll try, but alien minds have to be fairly open for me to read anything. If they are trying to keep it secret, I probably won't get anything."

"I understand. But anything would be better than what we know now."

"We hit them now; take them by surprise, and the whole of Karbarra is ours." Kami was saying to the Sentinels council. Rick was the most vocal of the others in agreeing with the idea.

"I lost seven good people in the fight just now, and eight mecha we couldn't afford to lose, I won't lose more if I can help it! The quicker we jump the planetary garrison, the fewer our losses and the quicker we win major mecha-producing facilities."

L'ron started to say something, but was cut off by Rick's short assessment of the situation. Rick was finally maturing into a fleet officer from a pilot, and both Lisa and Karen could tell. However, there was one slight problem.

"NO!" L'ron cried, pounding the table so hard that part of it broke off. "We cannot attack yet."

"Why?"

"Because the [untranslatable] is not correct! You are outsiders, and blind to the ways of Karbarra, and yet I tell you: if you go against the [untranslatable], then there is nothing but total disaster awaiting you."

This touched off long arguments, so long that the one-hour turn around was no longer possible. Karen had thought about the unfamiliar word used by the Karbarrans, and shortly came up with its translation, a minute before the computer.

The word meant "The Shaping of Things," a predetermined route to and end that could be detoured, but not stopped. It was very similar to the human concept of fate, but it seemed to have its ties in its root words to greater mysteries, involving the quasi-deity Haydon, and his plans. A quick look into the other Sentinel races' memories showed that they, too, had similar concepts, but not as strong as the Karbarrans' dedication to it. Strangely enough, she realized that Dr. Lang believed in it as well; at least what she remembered seemed to indicate so. In fact, she had heard him use the terms "Shapings" and "the Shaping of Protoculture" before, but had never really thought about what he had said. Things were getting very strange.

The council started to descend into chaos when Cabell called out, quieting all." Have you all forgotten the horrors the Invid inflicted on my planet? We must work together - Compromise! The life and death of whole worlds are at stake!"

Karen seized the moment. "A great man on Earth, Benjamin Franklin, was in a meeting similar to this, when the forming of the United States was beginning. The others had many differing view points, and it seemed that the revolution was doomed to fail. He told all of them that 'we must all hang together, or we will most assuredly hang separately'; meaning that if they didn't put aside their differences, and form a strong group, they would all soon be dead, or worse, at the hands of their oppressor."

"The cause is the same, only the odds are greater, as are the stakes. The freedom of nine worlds depends on our cooperation, not just thirteen colonies on a wilderness continent. The enemy isn't like us; they can't be reasoned with, at least not very easily. Lastly, none of our worlds can stand alone. To do so is suicide, and the Invid are far more ruthless than the British Empire was 250 years ago. We must join together, or be exterminated, one by one, by the Invid."

"Well said, Lieutenant," Lisa said. "We have to stick together. L'ron, would it hurt anything if the recon unit you wanted to lead consisted of beings from more than just Karbarra?"

"No, it wouldn't," L'ron answered haltingly, seeming to have been given a new hope of sorts. "But who will pick the team?"

"I believe I should," Veidt interjected. "After all, I am the chairman of this council, and have more knowledge of the Sentinels as a whole than any one of your races. All in favor of sending a mixed group to the surface to perform reconnaissance?"

"Aye!" the voting members all called out.

"Then it is unanimous. We will recess for twenty minutes in order for me to look over my choices." Veidt floated out of the room.

Karen wasn't surprised to find out that she was to be held in reserve; she didn't want to go anyway. She had been able to tell that the Karbarrans were definitely hiding something, but couldn't tell what, and told Lisa the same. However, Vince Grant had stumbled upon something, and now Karen and Jean Grant were checking it out, oblivious to the events outside the ship.

"Crysta?"

"Dr. Grant, Karen. Why aren't you at your stations?"

"We would like to talk to you about something."

"What?"

"When you were in Vince's office earlier, something strange happened and you stopped the tour. What do your children have to do with your reluctance to attack?"

"Our children? What do your mean?" Crysta replied, unconvincingly.

"I've got it, Jean," Karen said. "I'm sorry for prying into your mind, Crysta, but it was the only way we could be sure of our suspicions. Why didn't you tell us the Invid hold your children as hostages?"

"I'm so glad you know now," Crysta whispered.

"Huh?" Both humans gasped.

"You see, my people held a convocation - a meeting of great import - after the children had been abducted. In our Vision that resulted the Shapings clearly indicated that terrible things would happen should we tell anyone of our situation..."

"So you and L'ron hoped that the rest of the Sentinels would find out in some other way," Karen finished for her. "Well, we have, and have changed things enough to allow your people some hope. Jean, do you think that Invid lie detector you're working on is ready?"

"Just about why?"

"Let's see how much Tesla knows about Karbarra's problem. Crysta, do you want to help her?"

"I've been wanting to watch that worm in pain for quite some time."

"I'll take that as a yes. I'll talk to both of you later."

"Where are you going?" Jean asked.

"To do my job, of course," Karen replied, pointing to the alert light two seconds before it activated. "Karbarrans and Garudans aren't the only precogs around, you know. I'll make sure that Vince knows what you're doing." She spun and ran down the hall toward the elevator to the GMU.

"That girl sometimes seems to be two different people," Jean noted to Crysta. "One minute, she seems to know everything; the next, she's just another person. If you think what you've seen of her so far has been amazing, just think about what she would be like if she were fully in control of herself."

"What do you mean?" Crysta asked.

"I believe that Karen has something akin to multiple personality disorder. Marie Freeman told me that Karen has had many interesting visions and insights, but forgets most of them if she doesn't tell somebody about them almost immediately. Imagine what it would be like if she could recall it all? We certainly wouldn't be charging into this war as blindly as we seem to be doing now."

"A power like hers is probably too much for her to handle, Dr. Grant. We Karbarrans only have our visions when they are truly needed. The Garudans' powers of the _hin_ are so that they cannot live without them, and are only limited to a small but constant function. An mind can handle only so much."

"True. But does Karen know her limit?"

**Chapter Eight:**

"It was Tesla's change that gave me the first insights into the Invid's true fate. Ironic how Haydon's own tools could be used against his plans." - Karen Freeman, The Plane Truth.

The battle was short, and lopsided toward the Sentinels. Skull lost only two mecha, a Legios team that had charged into the thick of it half-cocked. Admiral Hunter's group had been informed of the situation, including the revelations about the Karbarran children. Marie and Karen were in one of the few window areas on the GMU, drinking glasses of the REF's gatorade analogue, looking over the rings of Karbarra.

"Have you heard anything from Scott?" Karen asked, not turning from the window.

"Only that they've begun the ascent. The messages have to be relayed by the shuttle. In fact, they haven't responded to the message about the Karbarran children yet, or Aunt Lisa would have called me."

"Speaking of Lisa, what's this crazy plan she and the Haydonites are cooking up?"

"I'm not sure, but I was told to send you to the bridge at 2000. It has something to do with Tesla."

"Sounds interesting. By the way, when are you and Scott going to present me with a cousin?"

My, Karen, how subtle can you get?" "Marie sneered. "If you must know, Scott and I have already discussed this a number of times. We've decided to wait until we at least return to Tyrol. You can understand that, can't you? We have few enough pilots as it is. The Sentinels need me as I am."

"Logical, as always. The only time you aren't thinking things out is in combat. Why are you so..."

"Unconventional? Scott and I plan those moves ahead of time, and even work them in the simulators. We only use them when a difficult situation arises, one that is hard to handle normally."

"God, I can sense the enemy's moves, five seconds before they think about making them and I don't even try anything like what you pulled out there last time!"

"It worked, didn't it? The Invid are so predictable it simplifies things."

"But there are ones who can think on their own. Be careful, Marie. I don't want to lose you or Scott. I love both of you too much to lose you due to acrobatics." Everything was quiet for a couple of seconds. Back in the early days before they decided to join the RDF, they had experimented a little, but Marie didn't feel right about it. The matter had been dropped after Marie had fallen in love with Scott. "I'll go talk to Lisa now."

"Karen; wait," Marie reached and grabbed her arm." You know it was never meant to be."

"I know, but you don't fully understand; not yet, anyway. You will always be part of me, and I of you. Our fates are forever intertwined. I gave much of myself to you when I made you, including many of my feelings for my family, feelings that were wrong to show. In a way, I am responsible for you falling in love with Scott."

"You don't know that. It was love at first sight for both Scott and me. You probably just hastened it. The past is the past, get on with your life. Now go on and find out what Lisa wants you to do. That's an order, Lieutenant."

"Yes, Ma'am," Karen said, snapping to attention and saluting her aunt, only for both of them burst out laughing.

"Git!"

"I'm going, I'm going! You're beginning to sound like Scott and Dad!

"Omigod, did I actually say 'Git'? I am beginning to sound like Scott!"

"Just watch yourself on the bridge. It's hard enough for most of you to remember to speak Zentraedi. Slang might overload the translator. I'll see you later!" Karen shipped down the hall, seemingly forgetting the events of the last four minutes.

"Karen, you're early."

"I was curious, Admiral, about your plans."

"Actually, it was Veidt and Sarna's plan, but I thought you would fit in too. We've made a deal with Tesla. He'll enable us to land without being fired upon. In exchange, he'll have a better chance of survival. To insure his cooperation, the two Haydonites and yourself will make sure he says what we want him to say, and make him sound believable. Do you think you are up to it? The Haydonites say they can do it by themselves, but I wouldn't mind some backup."

"It sounds great, but what's with the stage lights?"

"With the help of Janice and Sue Graham, we plan on making the biggest military misdirection broadcast since the assault on Khyron's Zarkopolis. You see, Veidt and Sarna must be within a certain range to affect Tesla's mind, close enough to be on camera. To make things look more natural, we plan to have an assortment of the Sentinels, including both of us, made up to look as prisoners and chained with false shackles."

"Very sneaky, Admiral; it should work. But how do we attack, once we're down? Mecha would be sitting ducks as they exit the ship."

"We have a few plans under consideration," Lisa said, but wouldn't say more.

"Admiral Hayes!" a tech called out.

"What is it, Lieutenant?"

"We've just been contacted by the shuttle. A couple of those feline Inorganics got into the shuttle and destroyed the radio to the scout party. They're cut off."

"Karen, can you contact them?"

"Under normal conditions, yes, but the distance is too far and the location too vague. I'll try, but I can't guarantee anything." She sat down in a meditative position, and concentrated on Scott, but had to give up after a minute. "It's no use; it's too far."

"Thank you for trying anyway. Report to the make up table. We're going on in two hours."

"Yes, Ma'am."

Two hours later, the first stage of the plan went off without a hitch. The second phase, passing off the releasing of flight mecha and hovertanks as debris were more difficult, but the Invid had no reason not to believe Tesla. However, the final stage was the most difficult.

The plan called for the Destroids to emerge pretending to be prisoners of Tesla. It worked, for a few seconds, until Tesla got too nervous (but then, who could blame him), and dove back into the hatch when the Karbarran Brain's representative ordered the Destroids deactivated and the pilots removed. Lisa had no choice but to order the attack to start early.

The battle started out well, but deteriorated as the Invid brought on reinforcements, while the only reinforcements the Farrago had was Karen, who had went back to the hangar and went out in her Valkyrie, which still had its space boosters attached (allowing her the firepower of the missiles, but limiting her flight capabilities in an atmosphere). Her sharpshooting made some difference, but not much. Her only success was in delaying an Invid move to collapse a row of buildings on a group of MACs and Spartans, so that only half were trapped, and the other half could defend them. Suddenly, the news came that the Karbarran children had been found. This meant that the VTs would be free soon to return to the Farrago, but by that time the Farrago would probably be gone. The prognosis quickly improved as gunfire erupted from the buildings of the city, wreaking havoc on the Invid. The Karbarrans had been monitoring the tacnet, evidently, and when they heard the children were safe, there was no longer anything holding them back. When the dust settled, the only known live Invid on Karbarra was Tesla, aboard the ship.

Almost six months went by, as the Farrago was repaired and its armaments improved. Many of the Sentinels volunteered for training in the use of Earth mecha, as there were now more mecha than human pilots, and there would be even more mecha once the factories came on line on Karbarra. Optimism was rampant. The trio of Janice, Rem, and Karen became tighter, and the barriers between the various races began to fall as the training programs were integrated. Rick even managed to talk Lisa into letting him fly combat craft again, but only if Max and Scott agreed and would personally retrain him.

Finally, the Farrago lifted off for Praxis...

**Chapter Nine:**

"It was ironic that we were looking for a trap on Praxis sprung by the Regis on the surface, when we ended up being backstabbed in orbit by Edwards and the Regent. There were still some Edwards supporters left on Tyrol even after his death, until the last surviving scientists of the Regent told the council of that fateful day in 2026, and we were vindicated. One of the aforementioned Edwards supporters even committed suicide later that night, in shame over what had happened. That one act reserved for Edwards a place in history alongside Hitler and Ghengis Khan, and displaced Benedict Arnold as the archetypical traitor. As long as humanity exists, he will be remembered as such."

- Richard Hunter, Admiral, REF (ret.)

**8 October, 2022***

"...It looks to me like there might not be anybody home," a tech said, at the end of his report of the GMU's scans of Praxis.

"Oldest trick in the book," Wolfe commented from the GMU's command center.

"Even the Invid would make more noise if they were playing dead. We don't have much choice. Skull Leader?"

"Here, Admiral," Max called back over the net.

"We're going to need a recon of the planet. Pick a team, and watch yourself; something very strange is going on down there."

"Roger, Admiral, I have just the squad in mind, Skull Leader out."

"Karen, do you think they'll be all right?"

"I think, Admiral, but I still have a bad feeling about Praxis. Something is very wrong down there. Uncle Rick will be fine as long as he's flying wing for Scott, though."

"I hope so."

After two VT recons and a close up search of one of the main communities by the Wolfe Pack, things began to look even stranger. The planet had been abandoned, not only by the Invid, but by the Praxians as well. The decision was made to drop off the GMU on the surface, and try to discover the reason for the abandonment of Praxis. A conference was called, to be held in the summer palace of Arla-non, the Praxian leader who was missing along with the rest of her people. All the prominent Sentinels were present, as were Scott and Karen, who had become somewhat of an advisory team for the council.

At first, the meeting went well, but Burak changed that, essentially pulling out of the Sentinels.

"...for today, this very hour, Burak of Peryton leaves, to pursue his own quest and bring salvation to his world, whether you are with me and my people or not!" He turned, and started to leave, when the room was pierced by a scream.

"NO! Oh God, no!" Karen screamed. Lisa rushed to her side.

"Karen, what's wrong?"

Scott suddenly remembered the briefing on that other universe's Haydon IV "...we traveled to Praxis, " the other Max had said, "only to find it had been cleared of its population... most of us were investigating the surface, the Regent sprang a trap..., destroying the Sentinels' ship." Scott ran to the communications terminal, only to hear, "Farrago under attack by large Invid force," then the sounds of breakup.

"Shannon!" Scott called to his brother, who was flying a Beta in the Farrago's VT screen.

"Scott, it's a world of shit up here! The Farrago's breaking up like glass, and there's too many of them!"

"Quick, all of you left up there! Forget offensive fighting! Make for the atmosphere and shut down your engines once you get lined up for atmospheric interface. Use backup power for controls only, and attempt unpowered reentry! It's your only chance!"

Shannon hit the Legios' thrusters, sending himself and his wife heading for the atmosphere. Six other teams volunteered to stay behind; staying powered and moving slower toward safety, covering the escape of their friends. Only three teams lasted long enough for the others to escape; then two of their Betas fell while allowing the other four VTs to make their runs to safety. The results were that 70% of the pilots had made it to the atmosphere, but only 3/4 of those were able to handle the powerless reentry. Nearly all of the casualties in the latter were those taught on Karbarra.

By the time the survivors were down, the Regent's ship had left, leaving only patrols heading for the planet. That enabled the mecha to be powered up again, now as the situation was just near-impossible instead of hopeless. In the end the Invid were destroyed, but almost all the munitions and fuel were gone. Only a couple dozen mecha were left semi-intact, as even the survivors had been damaged. Highlander had made it through with no personnel casualties, but only Karen, who had not gone into combat, still had a functional vehicle, the others having to eject or having depleted their power cells.

As night fell on Praxis, all the survivors of the Sentinels could do is wonder what was next, and not even Scott could remember how the Sentinels had been rescued on the other Praxis. They were on their own.


	7. Book Two, Part Seven

**Part Seven: Renegade**

**Chapter One**:

"I grew up on a steady diet of SF/Fantasy movies and books; most of us who volunteered for the REF did. It was like a strange sense of life imitating art, being trapped on Praxis during its self-destruction; only we had no hope of commandeering a Klingon bird of prey to escape in."

- Scott Freeman, in interview, 2045.

**13 February, 2023***

Four months passed on Praxis, with little hope of rescue. Suddenly, the outlook changed, if only barely. The drive module of what had been the Spheresian ship-section of the Farrago was detected in a decaying orbit a little over a thousand miles up. Unfortunately, there was no way to reach it.

"Are you sure there's no way to combine what fuel we have left to get a Veritech up there?" Scott asked Rick.

"Positive - Reaching escape velocity is too fuel-consuming for a Legios, and the one Valkyrie we have is a one-seater, and no one we have here knows how to fly both it and the module. The Valkyrie has more than enough fuel - Lang's crew who designed them on the SDF-1 made it only necessary to refuel one every ten years or so, and this one was built during the last uprising, but there's no way to transfer its fuel to a Legios."

"Wait a second. Do you know whose VT that is?"

"Lt. Ellison, er.. Freeman, or whatever she's calling herself nowadays. Your niece."

"Exactly. She can teleport, and it shouldn't be too difficult a jump, considering that she covered a larger distance to join us."

"I've already thought of that," Karen said, interrupting them from the doorway of the ops area. "However, the section that survived wasn't the section I'd been on before. I have to have a target to home in on, whether it be a visual image of my destination or the mind of someone I know. It would take a miracle for me to get the coordinates right without reappearing inside a solid object."

"How can you make a jump using a mind as a focus? Wouldn't it be just as blind?"

"Only if the person is. I can read their visual input and their short-term memory to find a save location to materialize. However, if we could get someone up there, I could join them easily."

"But that doesn't help us right now." Rick was interrupted by another one of Praxis' tremors. "And time appears to be running short, if what Scott remembers is correct."

"It is correct, I can sense it, somehow. The Regis did something to this planet, something that destabilized it. Something involving evolution."

Scott and Rick looked at each other, getting strange looks on their faces, "Karen, you didn't fall asleep last night watching my old Star Trek vids again, did you?"

"No, I didn't. But there are similarities to Star Trek III, though, now that you mention it. We can't expect the Invid to fall for the same trick as the Klingons did, even if any showed up, which they won't. I stopped by to tell you two that supper's ready, so let's go eat, THEN try to save the world."

"Come on, Rick. We worked through lunch, and I'm hungry enough to eat the Regent right now. Besides, Lisa might do something nasty to you if you're late. She hasn't been working out with the Praxians to become a lady wrestler, you know."

"If you put it that way, I'm right behind you. Which reminds me, is there any chance you can teach Lisa and me how to use those transformable bikes you gave us as wedding presents? Vince has had them in the GMU all this time, but was too busy to think about them, considering you two, Marie and Sgt. Sessom are the only ones qualified to use them right now."

"I left mine and Marie's in a bunker on Earth, as gifts for Noel and Dana when they're old enough to use them, but I think Scott and Marie still have the two in their Legios, or what's left of it," Karen said, referring to her uncle's emergency landing in a forested area after running out of fuel in the last battle.

"I'll go get them after we're through eating, Rick, and I'll start you off in the morning. How does that sound?"

"Great. I'll ask Lisa to start tomorrow as well. Now let's get back to town and eat; I'm starved."

They hadn't been eating long when Jack Baker and company came screaming back into camp, yelling about discovering something in a cave in the hills. Two hours later, they were in the cave, with the Haydonites communicating to the strange, floating globes that Jack's party had discovered.

"Do they understand what we're asking of them? - The specifics I mean." Rick asked.

"The mecha should lift off under its own power," Sarna replied. "After that, Veidt and I will be able to head the orbs into place."

"How many orbs do you think it will take to lift a Legios?"

"We'll find out when you do, Scott. Baker, call the GMU. Tell Vince to round up every body. We've got to move fast and assemble a crew for the module."

"Will we be heading back to base?"

"No, Give Vince our position, and tell him what we've learned. I want the base to come to us. You can get your stuff from the camp tomorrow."

It took almost a full day for the GMU to arrive, due to the deteriorating condition of the planet. In the meantime, the others went back and retrieved their gear and Skull and the Wolfe Pack went around salvaging the inoperable mecha to use as ferries to the module.

The problem now was choosing the first crew to send up. Sarna was automatic, as she was needed to control the orbs enough to allow the altitude needed for the first trip. Janice was picked to pilot the Beta, and to try to activate the module. This was mostly due to her knowledge of drive systems she had acquired aboard the Farrago, as she had been acting as an observer for Dr. Lang in that regard (and while no one yet suspected her true nature, she was considered to be part of the good doctor's clique, and everyone in it seemed to have a lot more technical knowledge than they let on). Next was choosing the Alpha pilot, the hardest choice.

"Well, I think I'm the most qualified," Rick started, only to be interrupted by half the persons present.

"It's too risky," both Max and Scott said, and Scott managed to wave off Max before he could continue. "Max, you're too invaluable to risk as well. I would go, but Marie would kill me if I tried. Most of us who can pilot an Alpha are not in a position to go. The person should not have any personal ties to anyone here, for one thing. That leaves out the Hunters, the Sterlings and my whole squad. Most of the GMU personnel aren't Alpha qualified, and the same goes for the Sentinels. There's only one person I can think of who fits the profile, but I can't speak for him. Colonel Wolfe?"

"Thank you, Scott, for that lead-in; I couldn't have said it better. With Vince and Max, we'll still have our defenses intact. One less tanker isn't going to influence things one way or another. Any future Invid attack will involve air combat and only the GMU will have the range of any the ground forces to have an impact in the battle."

"All right, you've got it. After all, you're used to doing things with Alphas that have never been done before," Rick said referring to the Wolfe Pack's role in the testing of all the REF's Veritech mecha, both ground and air.

Before the conversation could turn to the two auxiliary slots, Tesla forced his way into the arena, and offered himself as a candidate. Remarkably, Rick allowed him and Burak to round out the mission.

"Rick are you su- " Scott started to ask, when Karen nudged him. "Karen, what is it?"

"Trust me Scott, they HAVE to go. I've foreseen it. I don't trust them any more than you do, but it's vital that they be on the first trip up."

"If anyone else told me, I wouldn't believe them; but if you're convinced, you must know what you're doing."

"Actually, I don't know what they're up to, but the path is clear. Now let's stop debating, the matter's settled."

"Everything checks out fine so far," Wolfe was saying to Vince over the tac net. "It's like an elevator ride to the stars."

"Jon, this is Rick. I just got back to the command center. Does Sarna think you'll have any problems disengaging from those floating balls?"

"She says no problem."

"And Janice?"

"Here, Rick. We're doing all right, although it's a little crowded in here."

"Sit tight, Janice. You're almost there. Jon, save your power. Don't call us again till you get on board, or if you have trouble boarding."

"Wilco, Admiral. See you in a little while. Wolfe out."

"Well, Vince, what's their ETA at the module?"

"Twenty minutes. Uh, wait a second, something's wrong!"

"What's wrong?"

"The Beta just separated from the Alpha, and is picking up speed."

"Jon, do you read me? What happened?"

"We're not exactly sure, Sarna was just passing along final instructions to the globes, then all of a sudden the Beta broke away. We're way off course. Can you give us a new heading?"

"Coming up. Have you heard from Janice?"

"No. Whatever separated us must have done something to here radio as well."

"Keep trying. Your new heading should be coming up right n-"

"Admiral Hunter!" Janet burst out as she burst into the room. "We've got trouble, sir!"

"I'm already aware of it."

"No, sir, in the caves. We're under attack."

"Attack? From what?"

"Would you believe giant spiders?" Rick just looked at her funnily. "I'm serious, sir."

"Damn. Scott, monitor the Veritechs. I'm going to find out what's happening in the caves."

"Roger, Admiral." Scott said, releasing a long breath after Rick had left. "Karen, get in here!" he yelled, causing the others there to stare at him, as Karen was nowhere near, being in the crew of the second Legios. Karen quickly obliged, to the shock of the techs, teleporting into the small room.

"What is it?"

"Something's happened to the Legios up there. The Beta's broke off and went ahead of the module. Is there anything you can do to find out what's going on aboard it?"

"Not until it reaches the module, when I can get a better fix on them."

"Okay, We'll wait until then."

Then next five minutes were tense, as the Beta arrived at the module, then entered. Karen went into one of her trances for a minute, then awoke.

"I've got them. Tell Wolfe not to bother trying to remote the airlock; the code's been changed."

"The code's been changed? How?"

"That's not important, what's his ETA?"

"Four minutes. What do you have planned?"

"Just a little assistance, but it'll have to be subdued, tell him to wait for the doors to open." She turned and went into the interior of the GMU.

"I don't like this," a tech spoke up.

"I don't either, but do we have any choice? Where is she?"

"She's in the armory."

"Great. Let's hope she doesn't blow the ship up trying to save it."

"Sir! She just disappeared from the scanners!"

"Then she's on her way upstairs. Jon, have you been listening to all of this?"

"Yeah. Do you have any idea what's going on?"

"We think either Burak or Tesla, maybe even both of them, have done something to Janice, and are hijacking the module as we speak."

"Damn! Well, there's the door opening. How is she opening it, anyway? If she doesn't have a space suit, she's..."

"I know. I think I know why she stopped in the armory now. She's in one of the wedding present Cyclones."

"You're right, I see her now. I'll call you back when we've retaken the ship."

"Wolfe, dammit, wait for backup!"

"We don't have the time, and you know it. Besides, I outrank you, Freeman. You can't tell me what not to do. See you later, when we're through." Wolfe signed off.

"Damn! Damn! Damn! The idiot's gonna get himself killed!"

"Vince, Scott, What's going on?" Rick panted as he entered the room, having run back from the caves.

"All hell's breaking loose, both VTs are aboard, now, mainly due to Karen's teleporting into the module to open the doors for the Alpha."

"Uh, Rick, Scott, I think you should see this," Vince interrupted. "The module's left orbit, and it's building power." The blip on the canner brightened, then disappeared.

"Oh, shit."

"Vince, tell me that wasn't what I thought it was," Rick asked.

"They folded. The module's gone."

"How are we going to explain this to Lisa?" Rick said, deadpan.

"Whaddya mean 'we', kemosabe?" Scott replied, holding his head in his hands. "I'm gonna have my hands full telling Shannon and Kayra."

**Chapter Two:**

"I knew I had to go back to Tyrol; I even had an inkling why I had to go. I just couldn't figure out HOW I knew I had to go back. It wasn't even precognition, just a gut feeling."

— Karen Freeman, debriefing en route to Garuda

"Welcome aboard, Colonel."

"I thought you said you needed a reference point to get here?"

"I did, I picked up a stray thought from Janice," Karen lied. The stray thought was actually Burak's, but she thought it unwise to admit she had known what was happening all along.

"Nice suit."

"I borrowed it back from Aunt Lisa. Excuse me while I go back to Motorcycle mode, and you go on to the crew lounge."

"The lounge? Why not the bridge?" Wolfe asked, just as the main engines came on line.

"We're preparing to fold," Sarna said.

"Exactly," Karen replied. "If we don't get strapped in, we'll be tossed around like rag dolls when we accelerate." The Cyclone was back as a motorcycle, and she wheeled it into a small closet. "We'll have to run if we expect to have any leeway."

"What about the VTs?"

"The hangar'll take care of them with mini tractor fields. Hurry up, Colonel."

"All right, all right."

They had barely gotten strapped in when the ship folded. The fold was short, and both Karen and Jon were on their feet before the fold was completely over. Sarna and Jon went on to the bridge while Karen went back to the hangar for the Cyclone. She finally caught up, but not before the bridge had been liberated.

"They were in it together -" Janice was saying.

"Liar!" Burak butted in.

"- but they couldn't seem to agree on a destination," Janice continued, ignoring the Perytonian. "So I made the decision for them."

"Where are we?" Wolfe asked.

"Fantoma," both Karen and Janice said as Tesla fainted.

"I can't go with you," Karen said to Wolfe, as the module was entering the SDF-3's docking bay.

"What do you mean, 'can't'?"

"I mean, I can't. I went AWOL to join the Sentinels, remember? If I'm caught, I could be tried for desertion."

"You have a point; but what will you do?"

"You know about my powers; people here don't. I have ways of keeping out of sight. In fact, I'll probably be better off than you will."

"Just keep you eyes and ears open. Something funny's going on here."

"I know. I'll watch as long as I can from the control room, then teleport to Lang's area. I should be safe there," Karen said as the module touched down. "Now go, and the five of you please remember I'm not to be mentioned."

Karen sat and watched the others leave, and be greeted by Dr. Lang and Exedore. As the others left the bay, Karen contacted Lang telepathically.

"Emil, it's Karen."

"Where are you?" he thought back.

"Aboard the Module. When you and Wolfe are through, I'll be in Isle's quarters. He does still live where he did when the Sentinels left?"

"Yes. But it will be a while, we have much to discuss."

"See you then, I'm gone," she thought, then she teleported.

Kyle was stepping out of the shower when she arrived. "Jesus Christ! Lady, don't you ever knock?"

"Only when I use doors."

"Where have you been? There's actually been a manhunt for you!"

"I went with the Sentinels; what did you think I'd do?"

"And went AWOL? That's stupid!"

"I had to go. In fact, the Hunters were glad I went."

"Are they OK? We had reports that the Farrago was destroyed."

"It was. Most of the Sentinels were killed. The survivors are mostly REF, as we landed on Praxis with the GMU just prior to the massacre. Our losses were limited to about a quarter of our VT pilots and the auxiliary bridge crew we left on the Farrago."

"How did it happen? Surely, they weren't stupid enough to try a frontal assault on the planet, and left the ship unprotected."

"The planet had been abandoned, by both the natives and the Invid, when we arrived. We landed the GMU to investigate, then shut it down as we searched the city on foot. That was the only thing that saved us. The Invid arrived, blew up the ship, and left; probably after failing to detect any more protoculture."

"They just arrived and attacked? I'm no Henry Gloval, but that sounds very strange to me. They had to have known you were going to be there. Could there have been any spies in the Sentinels?"

"Not a chance. They were too dedicated to their cause to betray it to the Invid."

"What about in the human contingent, then?"

"How? None of the REF personnel had any exposure to the Invid, except a few of us in the staff. And I would have known in that case."

"Who else knew your destination from Karbarra?"

"We sent a message back here, telling our next destination... Oh, God! You don't think -"

"I'm afraid so. There are persons on the council who might just be willing to betray the Hunters to the Invid, just to get rid of them. Humans are the only race that would do itself in for revenge."

"Who do you think it is?"

"Stinson, maybe Longchamps, possibly even Riley."

"Riley? What's he doing on the council?"

"They finally tried and demoted Benson for the seizure of the Southern Cross mecha to reinforce our own. It cost him two grades and Adams one. Riley was promoted into command of Ghost, and was given the corresponding council seat."

"Wolfe's in council right now, trying to get a rescue mission organized."

"God help him, then. If I'm right, there's no chance he'll get one."

"Then God help the others, too, because Praxis is literally falling apart, and could blow up any day. It sure won't last out the month."

"Are you sure?"

"The air was almost unbreathable when I left, and there were earthquakes almost constantly, that even the GMU's shock absorbers can't fully handle. It's like walking on a waterbed." Karen started to stagger a bit, then sat down on the bed.

"Lay down and get some rest, Karen. I'll get you up when the meeting is over."

"Thank you, Kyle. I could use a little rest..." She fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.

"Karen, wake up!" Janice said, shaking her friend. "It's time to go."

"Huh?"

"Lt. Isle let you sleep, on Dr. Lang's orders. Emil even managed to transfer you to the Sentinels, so you're not on the run anymore."

"How long have I been asleep?"

"Six hours. Do you think you can read from Jon's mind what we have planned, from here?"

"Yeah; I see. Did Linc tell them of our suspicions?"

"He did, but there's nothing Lang and Forsythe can do without more proof. Do you need to do anything before we have to leave?"

"I don't think so. When are we leaving?"

"In a half-hour."

"Good. I think I might have something to do after all. Go on ahead; I'll meet you in the shuttle bay." Karen started to stand, then sat back down.

"Are you OK?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Go on, I'll be there."

"If you say so," Janice said, then she turned and left the room.

Karen almost couldn't hold it in. Carpenter's going to Earth! She knew her place was out here, but it seemed more and more obvious that it would be a long time before they would return to earth. She had had a vision of Marie and herself, no, DANA and NOEL, in Southern Cross armor, piloting Hovertanks. She knew what she had to do. She pulled the holo locket out of her pocket, the one that she and Marie had been recording on Praxis, to be launched in a message buoy in case they weren't able to make it off in time. She opened it, then watched the introduction they had recorded on Praxis. When it ended, she thumbed the record button, sat it down, and stepped back into the recording area. When the timer sounded, she began her message.

"Noel, my sister; regardless of the outcome of the events here, I sense our part of the play is left to you..."

**Chapter Three:**

"You don't think you could have cut it any closer do you?"

- Scott Freeman to Jonathan Wolfe

**12 March, 2023***

Karen closed the locket, and went to the wall comm unit. She punched in the code for shipboard information.

"Information; how may I help you, ma'am?"

"Do you have a current location for Major John Carpenter?"

"His last reported location was on the Robotechnology level, in Dr. Lang's quarters."

"Thank you corporal." Karen teleported into Dr. Lang's library, then exited into the lounge area, where Dr. Burke and Carpenter were talking.

"Hello, Dr. Burke, Major Carpenter," she called out from the balcony.

"Ah, yes; hello, Karen, Emil told me to expect you," Burke replied. "You know the Major?"

"I participated in some of the conferences with the colonial support fleets. How many of the support fleets have made it here, so far?"

"Just part of Carpenter's, and their chronometers were a bit out of sync from our own. We're still looking for the reason. We're hoping that other fleets are on their way, with other travel delays. All three escort fleets were supposed to leave at the same time, but only a few ships from Eden have made it so far. No sign yet of the fleets from the Alpha-C colonies or Valhalla."

"Major, as you should know by now, I have to return to Praxis within the hour, so could you do me a favor?"

"I know, I pray you make it back in time. What do you want me to do, Lieutenant Ellison?"

"Take this locket back to Earth when your mission leaves. I need to get it to someone. Her name is Noel Freeman; she's one of the Chief of Staff Rolf Emerson's wards, along with Dana Sterling and Vince Grant's son."

"Why is it so important?"

"That's classified. However, Emil will vouch for my need to have it delivered. The information in it could be vital to Earth's survival, but it can only be used through the girl."

"I can't even pretend to understand, but I'll do it for you, if it's that important."

"Thank you, Major. I have to go now. Whatever you do, don't forget the locket." She saluted him, then turned and ran out of the apartment. She made her way down the hall to the labs, then ducked into the women's restroom. She teleported to the shuttle from there. Janice and the others were boarding as she arrived.

"Hi Jan; I told you I'd be here on time."

"Some people can't teleport."

"I won't hold that against you," Karen said, grinning. "The engines are warming up, and we can leave as Jon gets up here."

"Then let's leave," Wolfe said, interrupting them as he entered the pilot's area. "Janice, take the command console; Karen, you'll be my co-pilot. Open the bay doors and launch as soon as we can fit through them."

"Roger, Colonel. Launch in fifteen seconds," Janice replied as Wolfe took his seat.

The shuttle cleared the bay with only about a meter's clearance on each side through the blast doors. No sooner had they engaged main thrusters, than orders started coming in for them to return.

"Let's make it look good," Wolfe said to the others.

"I have two gunships coming at us from our rear," Janice called out.

"Don't worry about them; by the time they can get close enough to target us, we'll be at our destination. Any word from the cruiser?"

"Negative. They're not even responding to the SDF-3 bridge."

"Good," Wolfe replied, then was cut off by a warning klaxon. "What is it, Karen?"

"We're being targeted by the cruiser."

"Ignore it. They should be firing a warning shot to make it look good."

A laser turret from the cruiser flared, striking the communications package on the hull above the shuttle's bridge.

"Why do I get the feeling that was planned?" Karen said to Janice.

"Now we couldn't reply, even if we wanted to," Wolfe said, breaking into a grin. "Remind me to commend their gunner when we get aboard."

"The cruiser's docking bay is opening. Their bridge is patching into our guidance system. The SDF-3 thinks they're assisting in our capture," Janice said, condensing what she heard over the backup receiver.

"Let them take us in."

"The fortress is repeating the warning. Admiral Forsythe -"

"- Has to make it look good, so he doesn't get suspected in allowing our escape. It doesn't matter, now. The docking bay should be pressurized in twenty seconds. Let's go meet our crew."

The four ranking officers of the ship's skeleton crew, a lieutenant, two JG's, and an ensign, were waiting for them as they exited the shuttle.

"We were attached to Major Carpenter's command," the lieutenant explained to Wolfe and Karen. "Welcome aboard, sir, ma'am."

"You must be extremely loyal to the Hunters to volunteer for this mission instead of returning to Earth," Karen said to one of the JG's.

"We can't stand what is going on here, ma'am. If we can't get the Hunters back to stop it, it may spread back to Earth."

"I know; I've seen it myself. One thing though, from now on, ignore our ranks if we're not on the bridge. After all, we're not part of the REF anymore are we?"

"Understood. My name is Michael Stearns. My friends call me Sterno."

"Karen Freeman. I used to go by the name Ellison."

"You're the singer? I thought you were a sergeant."

"I was, until we left Earth. You see, I'm one of Lang's special projects." She looked down to Stearn's sidearm, then teleported it out of his holster into her hand.

"How'd you do that?" he gasped.

"Ancient Jedi mind trick. Actually, would you believe I'm a five year old half-Zentraedi mutant? Believe whichever one you want."

"Forget I asked. Our course is already set for Praxis, so all we have to do is go to the bridge in order to leave."

"What's our ETA?" Janice asked.

"Two days relative," the lieutenant talking to Wolfe answered. We've made some improvements since you left."

"I guess you have," Wolfe replied. "We haven't any time to waste. Let's get underway."

When they entered the bridge, Karen went immediately to the sensor console, and Janice to the communications. Five seconds after Wolfe took his seat in the command chair, space seemed to turn inside out, then they were back over Praxis.

"Jon, I have a large object exiting the atmosphere... it's the GMU!"

"Thank you, Karen. Janice, contact them."

"Yes, Major; I'm hailing them now," She said hitting the transmit key. "GMU, this is ..." She covered the mike and turned to the others. "What the hell is this ship's name?"

"It doesn't have one. It hasn't been dedicated yet."

"Great," she muttered as she rethumbed the mike, "GMU, this is the Heart of Gold. Do you wish to unload any hitch hikers and former galactic presidents?"

"Janice, I never knew you read any Douglas Adams." Karen said smiling.

"Doctor Lang's library isn't all technical manuals, Karen. He has a huge library of classic science fiction. Where do you think he got the ideas for some of the mecha?"

"Janice, is that you?" Rick's voice came over the comm net.

"Yes, Admiral. The cavalry has arrived."

"Admiral, this is Karen. I suggest that you abandon the GMU immediately. The sensor readings I'm getting of the planet suggests it will self destruct in less than 60 minutes but no sooner than 30 minutes."

"Understood. We'll be aboard as soon as possible."

The next half-hour was filled with rushed transfers from the GMU to the SDF-7, assisted by the skeleton crew of the latter. They were barely a million miles out when the planet blew, with the Admirals now on the bridge as well as the other Sentinel leaders.

"We are homeless," Bela cried.

"Admiral Hunter, they aren't the only ones," Karen said quietly to Rick. "There have been some setbacks on Tyrol."

"Setbacks?"

"Colonel Wolfe will explain; you need to call a council meeting as soon as possible to hear him." Her voice told Rick that something was terribly wrong.

"I will, right now. I'm sure you can handle the bridge without us."

"I can. Thank you, sir."

**Chapter Four:**

"All I need is the air that I breathe..." — 20th century song lyrics

**13 April, 2023***

The small council meeting grew into a conference including all of the crew in one of the inner holds. The same story Wolfe told the Sentinel leaders was repeated to them, and a vote taken, the mission being a democracy, to decide whether to return to Tyrol or continue on to Garuda. Overwhelmingly, the decision was for Garuda.

Karen Freeman, as usual, abstained from the actual voting. Although officially part of the Sentinels now, she still didn't feel like it was her place to do anything except advise. Even as the Ark Angel defolded in the far reaches of the Rhestad system, she found herself at an isolated observation window, scanning the distance for the blue-white point of light that was Garuda.

"Penny for your thoughts, Karen?"

"Uncle Scott; I should have known you'd come looking for me. I'm looking for Garuda. It's strange, but I have this feeling as if I'm coming home."

"In a way, you are. It was on that other Garuda that your mother was exposed to the _hin_; it was that exposure that was responsible for a good deal of your powers, at least according to Dr. Lang."

"I know. It's like the planet is calling out to me, calling me back home."

"If you were anyone else, I'd say you were imagining things. However, with you, anything's possible."

"I'm not quite that powerful — look!" She suddenly changed the subject, pointing to the turquoise star that was slowly resolving into a disc. "There it is. It's beautiful."

"It brings back memories of when your parents were a pair of scared newlyweds and oxygen was scarcer than members of the York chapter of the Khyron fan club. I didn't have time to take in the view then." Scott stopped, the spectres of the _hin_-produced nightmares of that other time/place working their way out of the deepest recesses of his mind.

"Uncle Scott, the Admirals are looking for you. They chose you and Marie to be shuttle escorts on the trip down."

"I knew they'd choose me, but I'm not sure I want to. Not all of my memories from Garuda are pleasant."

"I know; but you can't rid yourself of them unless you face them. Come on, we have to go to the bridge now."

"As always, you're right, Karen, but it's easier said than done. I feel almost helpless against fate. So much has happened to me, that I have had no control over."

"You're only as helpless as you choose to be, at least while I'm around," Karen said, stepping into the hallway. "We are not bound to a finite set of pathways, no matter how cut-and-dried the situation may seem. There is always another way."

They sat down outside Kami and Learna's village, at a distance they thought would allow them some time to organize themselves before a welcoming committee of either natives or Invid troops could arrive. However, they were surrounded by Garudans and Tyrolean Bioroids before the shuttle could come to a stop.

"Your people are punctual, aren't they?" Scott called over the net from his Alpha to Kami on the shuttle.

"The _hin_ allows many things. They sensed our arrival in the atmosphere, and knew where we would land as soon as we did."

"Where did the Bioroids come from?"

"They were stranded here by the Invid attack, so we took them in."

"Took them in?"

"Into our tribe. Speaking of which, don't leave your Veritech until Learna and I signal you to."

"If you say so." Scott and the others watched as the two Garudans left the shuttle. They were soon surrounded by their tribe mates, and the all-clear sign was given. Scott and Marie sat down quickly, then jumped out in their CVR to join the festivities. Within an hour, the Sentinels contingent was conferring with the tribal leaders.

"What's the situation here? Do the Invid run patrols through this sector?" Rick asked the chief.

"Their Inorganics patrol, but only when there is need to intimidate or gather more laborers for the farms. They don't seem to regard us or our clone comrades as a threat," the chief replied. "But I assure you that all Garuda is ripe for rebellion."

"They're using your people on the farms?"

"Lately, yes. And in the labor camps near them."

"So much for surgical strikes from the ship," Max chimed in.

"What about mecha?" Lisa asked. "Scouts, Shock Troopers?"

"Only a few are here when the transports are gone, mostly the higher evolved types; Enforcers and the Regis command unit mecha that watch over individual camps."

"Lisa," Scott cut in, "I remember that when I crashed with the Korra'ti, we were first attacked by about a dozen Scouts and Shock Troopers. They won't have it as a distraction this time, so they should be counted on as well."

"You have been on Garuda before?" the chief asked Scott.

"Yes and no. Years ago, my squad had a fold accident that sent us into another universe, one almost identical to our own. My ship crashed on that other universe's Garuda, on the far side from here. The date was tomorrow there. I would have died, had we not been rescued by our other-dimensional counterparts, who had just defeated the Invid. By that time, however, half of us were in the throes of severe _hin_ poisoning, as we were low on air before the crash, and had no way of reprocessing your air for our use."

"How did you get back to our reality?"

"As many we have met have said, the Shapings move in mysterious ways. We had another accident in our renovated ship after participating in an attack on the Regent at Optera. Something in the trip back caused us to forget what we saw, but we have been remembering more and more as our lives begin to parallel our previous experiences."

"Back to the Invid," Rick said, resuming control of the conversation. "You said that there were large numbers of Invid mecha here only when there were transports picking up the nutrient shipments for Optera. How often are the shipments, and when was the last one?"

After some discussion, Kami replied for the chief. "The shipments are about every three months; and the last shipment left a month ago."

"That means that we're in the clear for the moment," Rick said, his grin nearly breaking the seal of his mask. "It'll take at least a couple of weeks for reinforcements to arrive."

"The closest farm is about one hundred miles from here," Learna added. "Kami and I know that area well."

"An aerial recon," Max suggested.

"No," Rick countered. "We can't show our hand just yet. Stealth is the best method. We'll take hover cycles first; and take a quick look around before we plan of assault. Just because mecha haven't been observed doesn't mean they're not in there. Lisa and I will go along with Penn, Baker, Rem, and Kami as our guide. We'll leave before first light."

"If you say so, Rick," Scott added. "But I've got that sinking feeling again that we're forgetting something again."

**Chapter Five:**

"Open your eyes, and see the world that stands before you now."

- 20th century song lyrics

The Hunters and their recon group had been gone three hours when Scott and Marie were gotten up by an incoming call from the Ark Angel.

"Commander Freeman," Karen said officiously to her uncle over the net, "I request permission to come ashore."

"Permission granted. When can you come down?"

"I'm right behind you," she said teleporting in behind her uncle and best friend inside the bomb/cargo compartment of the Beta, converted to a sleeping cubicle by the addition of an air mattress and a couple blankets.

"Wha — Warn me before you do that!" Scott yelped, turning off the transceiver as he turned around.

"Sorry, Scott. I was bored topside. When's breakfast?"

"In an hour, so you've got time to look around if you want. There's spare gear in the cockpit. Don't forget to seal it off before you go out, though. I had enough of the _hin_ six years ago." Karen didn't have to read his mind to understand his hints to leave the two alone.

"Right. See you in an hour." She stepped up the conduit and closed the two seals behind her. After they heard the cockpit open and close, Scott and Marie fell back into bed (or what passed for one) and attempted to make the most of the hour.

They were disturbed less than a half-hour later by alarms going off in the encampment. They dressed hurriedly and went to the Beta's cockpit for their transpirators.

"Scott?"

"What is it?"

"Weren't there only three sets of gear up here?"

"Yeah, why?"

"There still are."

"Omigod. You don't think Karen -"

"She had to have." Neither said another word as they tested their transpirators, then exited the Veritech. They reached the longhouse, that was the village's heart to find Karen completely alive and sane, despite her constant exposure to the _hin_, and Jack Baker nearly out of breath, recounting the story of the Hunters' capture.

"Damn, I knew I had forgotten something! This happened on the other Garuda as well," Scott half-screamed at himself.

"It's not your fault, uncle," Karen said to him. "Only the one who messed with your memories is responsible."

"Karen, how did the Invid know they were there?"

"The Invid have Protoculture sensors in their mecha and Inorganics; why not in their defensive systems as well?"

"But they didn't have anything powered by Protoculture, except their weapons, which they would have activated only if they were attacked first."

"Are you sure? Go over to the terminal and access the data on their hovercycles."

"Hover bikes aren't Protoculture powered!"

"Most aren't some of the first were, however. Check the serial numbers; what are the first five digits in each one?"

"One begins with SC-HC4; the rest are SC-HC2."

"Check the bike Jack came back on. Is it the HC4?"

"How did you know?"

"I spent a lot of time with Lang in the labs, remember? The first production run of Hovercycles was Protoculture powered, but it was decided that there were better uses for the Protoculture and the bikes were redesigned to use conventional power sources. The first run was assigned to the REF, along with the first run of the conventional types, to save the ASC's supply of Protoculture. Very few people know the difference existed. In fact, it was only sheer luck that Jack used the one conventional hover bike to come back here on, or he never would have made it."

"Great," Scott muttered. "Max, you and I need to have a talk with Jon and Vince. Karen just pointed out a major screw up in our ground equipment."

"Can you leave in 15 minutes?"

"Huh?" Scott didn't expect to be able to actually meet with the others.

"Would you believe Burak came up with our rescue plan? We're going up to the Ark Angel to pick up Tesla, to use as a prop in a fake exchange."

"Well, I'll be damned."

"We still have to iron it out, and get extra ground forces for a diversion, so I was going up mainly to get Vince and Jon's input."

"I'm game. When will we be coming back down?"

"Probably around night fall. For this to work, our troops have to be in place before dawn."

"Can I go too?" Karen asked.

"Karen, where's your transpirator?" Max asked, almost panicky, remembering how Scott and the others had been affected by their exposure in the incident of years ago.

"I don't need one. I can't describe the sensation. It's like I've been sleepwalking my whole life, and here only now opened my eyes. It's incredible."

"How long has she been out here, Scott?"

"Almost an hour. If she was going to be hurt by the exposure, she would have already been affected."

"Good. But next time, Karen, warn your superiors before you try anything like this. You could have given me a heart attack."

"Yes, sir. But can I go?"

"Yes, you can come with us. We may need you to help 'convince' Tesla to go along with our plans."

"Understood."

"Max; like I was about to say, we'll meet you at the shuttle. I've got to tell Marie where were going."

"I understand. Tell here that Mir's been looking for her for some reason or another."

"I will. I get the feeling that they haven't been spending as much time together as they'd like to. After all, they have only been able to have anything resembling a mother-daughter relationship for the last year, since Karen went public."

"I can vouch for that. It was frustrating knowing that she was my daughter, but not being able to acknowledge it. Now get going, we've just wasted five minutes."

"See you in ten, Max."

Karen's theory about the Hovercycles was confirmed by Tesla, and he made it clear that even inactive weapons had a chance to be detected by the hive defense sensors. These were hundreds of times more powerful than mecha sensors, to prevent theft of Protoculture. The conference was reestablished planetside, while Most of the personnel still in orbit shuttled down. It soon became apparent that the only viable weapons for the insertion would be conventional explosives and Karbarran air rifles, which were almost as destructive as the laser pistols used by the Wolfe Pack.

It was with these that the second team went in; L'ron, Crysta, Gnea, Bela, Learna, Jack, Janice, and Karen Freeman. They were dropped off at midnight by Garudan aircraft, twenty miles short of their destination. Four hours later; Skull and Wolfe were ready to deploy.

"Mom, are you OK?" Marie said to Miriya as they approached the row of Veritechs at the edge of the village.

"I'm fine," Miriya replied, forcing a weak smile.

"You don't look fine," Max added, putting his hand on her head. "Maybe you should set this one out."

Miriya laughed at the suggestion. She hadn't been grounded since Dana was born. "Max, I'm just a little tired. Now, I want the two of you to wipe that concerned look off your faces. I'll be all right." She climbed up into the cockpit of her alpha, and closed the hatch.

Max and Marie had no choice but to go on to their own mecha. "Scott, are you ready?" Marie asked, climbing into the Beta.

"As I'll ever be," Scott replied from the Alpha. "I wonder how Karen's doing."

"I'm doing fine thank you." Karen's voice echoed in their head. "We've got a problem, though. I've scanned the hive and I can't find Rem!"

"That'll have to wait, Karen. We'll see you when this is over," Scott thought aloud.

"Good luck, you two. You mean everything to me."

"I think it should be us wishing you luck, Karen. You have the tougher job," Marie said.

"I'll see you soon."

"If you two are through talking to yourselves, you might want to lift off," Max called over the net.

"Sorry, Max. We got a mental update from Karen. Everything's going according to plan except that she can't find Rem."

"Damn. He must have been on that courier ship that left last night."

"What courier ship?" Scott said, throttling the VT up and lifting off.

"It's a small ship, about the size of a Legios and unarmed. As it would take a month for it to bring back help, Wolfe let it go. We never thought it would be carrying one of the prisoners, as it has minimal cargo capacity, maybe enough for one passenger."

"None of us would have done anything different, Max. You know it. We should be able to find out where he was taken when we capture the hive."

"OK, now, we'll be at the target in three minutes," Max said talking now to the entire squadron. As we pass over in formation, drop your plasma neopalm canisters when you receive the go tone, then go ballistic. Remember to keep your wings clear of your wingmates. After reaching 5000, circle back and hit the other farm, Blue and Highlander to the West, Red to the East."

They dove in, dropped the canisters, then shot up to avoid the liquid fire that rained on the farms. The squadron then split up, hitting the farms on the sides of the hive. The second run was interrupted by the appearance of the farm's defenders, dozens of Shock Troopers and Pincers.

"Heads up, Skull Leader," Scott called to Max over the net. "We've got company."

"Roger, Highlander. Coming around to zero one zero. Keep your guard up, you two."

In less than a minute, two score Invid mecha and three Veritechs were smoking ruins. The battle worked its way around the hive dome until the separate groups rejoined. Max was in Battloid mode by this time, as were most of the other pilots. He saw the tandem of Scott and Marie, back to back in their Battloids.

"Ahoy, Skull Leader," Scott called out. "How's the hunting?"

"I guess we succeeded in attracting their attention, huh?" Max replied. "Red Leader, come in. Miriya, come in, where are you?"

"Dad, I see her at your four!" Marie called to her father. "She's kinda too busy to answer you right now."

"Then let's go help her." The watched as she picked off one of the four shock troopers harassing her, only to struggle with the other three. Marie and Scott wasted no time in going to Miriya's assistance, taking out two of the three before they knew what hit them. Max then shot the last one easily as it was distracted by it's companions destruction. Miriya's Battloid seemed to waver on its jets.

"Miriya, what's wrong?" Max gasped. "Miriya!"

"I - I... don't know, Max. I had a dizzy spell."

"I want you to return to base."

"I'll be all right, I feel better now."

"Forget it -"

"Max!" Jon Wolfe suddenly interrupted. "We've got trouble! Inorganics — hundreds of them!"

"Your pack should be able to handle those things."

"It's not us their after. Those sons of bitches have turned them loose on the civilians — they're ripping the Garudans to shreds!"

"Damn! We're coming, Jon. Skull! Converge on the Wolfe Pack! The Inorganics are attacking the slave camps!"

The Veritechs mechamorphed back to Jet mode, and wasted no time reaching the slave camps. Unfortunately, a new wave of piloted Invid mecha from the main hive followed them. Max's blue team dropped down as Battloid as the Wolfe Pack realigned, and they formed a gauntlet of fire that Inorganics would have to pass through to menace the Garudans. Half the Wolfe Pack fell back, and went hand to hand with the Inorganics already through the barrier. Highlander and Skull's red team took care of the aerial defense.

Scott and Marie were back to back; each had already downed a dozen Invid each in the original battle, and were more than halfway there against the second wave.

"Scott, how's your ammo?" Marie asked her husband, as she shattered a Shock Trooper with her guns.

"I've got 26 missiles left, and I'm on my last mag for my cannon. What about you?"

"I've used all my big missiles, and I'm almost out of ammo for my arms -" she stopped for a second, as she blasted another Shock Trooper to bits. "Correction: I AM out of ammo for my arm cannons. However I still have most of my short range missiles left. Any more targets left?"

"Not many. There's four on your mother again... Correction, make that one — What? Omigod!"

"What is it Scott?"

"She's down! I don't know how, but she got hit by a shot Dana could dodge. Max! Miriya's down!"

**Chapter Six:**

"Pregnant? What does that mean?" — Miriya Sterling, 9/22/11

**18 April, 2023***

Max, Marie, and Scott reached Miriya's downed VT at about the same time as four Cougars.

"Max, watch out!" Scott yelled to his father-in-law, as two of the Hellcats that had been clawing at Miriya's Alpha leapt at him.

"I got them," Max called back, fragmenting them as Marie blew apart a third.

"Max, I can't get a clear shot at the last one! It's got a claw through the canopy!"

"I'll get it — Hey!" the cat leaped from Miriya's Alpha to Max's, digging its claws into the Battloid's chest.

"I got it, Dad!" Marie ran her Battloid mode Beta over to her father, and ripped the feline Inorganic off his Veritech. She then tossed it into the air. "Nail it, Scott!"

"My pleasure, hon." Scott fired a two missiles into it, blowing it into smithereens.

Max ran up to Miriya's Alpha, going to guardian mode. He popped out of the cockpit of his Alpha like a hyperactive Jack-in-the-box, running to her cockpit. "Miriya! — No!" He turned to Scott and Marie. "Help me! They tore her mask off!"

Marie transformed back to Jet mode, and ran to her parents. "Dad, help me get her to the Beta. I can put her in the back and flood it with pure oxygen."

"Max hit the emergency canopy release and pulled his wife's limp body from the cockpit. "I've got her. Let's go." As they approached the Beta, Scott rejoined his Alpha to it.

"Marie, stay in back with Miriya. Leave the flying to me. Max, I need to have a word with you."

"What is it, Scott?"

"It's about Miriya. My on-again-off-again memory is acting up again. I know this sounds perverse in our current situation, but - Congratulations. You're about to become a father again. That's why she had the dizzy spells and the like. If you two had told me earlier what her symptoms were, I probably would have remembered then and we could have prevented this."

"She's pregnant. But will the _hin_ affect them like Kayra and Karen?"

Karen was approaching the hive, keeping her air rifle pointed at Tesla, who was walking ten feet ahead of her. Tesla spoke into the voiceprint analyzer next to the portal, and its force field dropped. After passing down a short tunnel, they entered what Tesla identified as the hive's equivalent of a foyer, and gave them the okay to remove their oxygen masks.

"Which way?" Jack demanded, looking at the many passages.

"Up," Tesla replied. "Position yourselves around me."

"Why?" Jack asked, but doing what Tesla asked. Suddenly the ground rushed away from their feet.

"By the Eternal She —" Gnea put her spear against Tesla's neck.

"Please Praxian. I did not mean to startle you. This is simply our elevator system," Tesla gasped, easing up onto his toes to remove the spear point from his neck.

"He's telling the truth," Karen said to the others. "Lang and Fokker encountered similar systems aboard the SDF-1, after it first crashed on Earth. However, they stopped functioning not long afterward." She dropped to one knee, motioning the others to do the same. "We'll have company the second this ride stops."

As the floor reformed beneath them, four Enforcers turned towards them.

"Nail them to the wall!" Karen cried, sending a projectile from her Karbarran rifle cleanly through the lead Enforcer's head, decapitating it. One of the Praxians duplicated the feat with a crossbow bolt, while the last two were dropped by a combination of rockets from Jack and the Karbarrans' grenades.

"You are all barbarians," Tesla said, looking at the remains of the Enforcers.

"Stow it," Jack spat back. "Which way now?" An obnoxious hum filled the chamber.

"An alert," Tesla said, stepping over to a communications sphere. "Seems you've succeeded in attracting attention to yourselves — Ahh, there's the reason they're leaving us alone..." The sphere filled with the images of the Inorganics attacking the natives, then the natives swarming over the Inorganics.

"It's suicide!" Janice cried.

"Then let's make it count for something," Jack said. "Where's the control room?" he asked Tesla while shoving the Invid into motion.

"This way," Tesla said, leading them to another fielded portal, and opening it as he did the first.

A quick search resulted in the discovery of two scientists hiding behind a counter. L'ron picked them up by their neck ridges, then shoved them into the center of the room.

"Tesla!" one of them screamed, followed by a string of sounds that didn't require translations to understand the general meaning. Janice gave a PG-rated translation anyway.

"He called Tesla a traitor. Said it was true what they'd heard about him."

"Meaning what?" Jack asked.

"Why, my leading you here," Tesla answered quickly.

"Not quite, Tesla. I believe they're referring to your attempted murder of the Regent," Karen said, the look of surprise on Tesla's face matching that of the others. "That's right, Tesla; ATTEMPTED murder. You killed a simulagent. The Regent never left Optera."

"You - you've known?"

"All along. You can't hide from a telepath, even if the telepath wasn't 'all there' at the time."

"Huh?" Jack asked. "What do you mean?"

"Jack, surely you've heard the rumors about my split personality? They were true. Exposure to the _hin_ has merged them; I have most of their memories and a power level between theirs. However, most is not all, but what I have tells me that the prisoners are being kept on the lowest level." Karen turned toward the two Invid that had been captured, and said something in the Invid language that made them tremble. "They'll take us to the prisoners now."

"What did you say to them?" Bela asked.

"I told them that I'd teleport them to the Regent and let them explain their failure personally if they didn't obey my every word. They're more scared of him than they are of me," Karen explained, as Tesla snickered (or at least did something that sounded like snickering) in the background.

The scientists led them to the prisoners where, as Karen had said before, it became apparent that Rem was gone.

"What did they do to him?" Janice asked, fear in her voice.

"It was bound to come out sooner or later, so I'll go ahead and tell you. Rem is a clone of Zor, the discoverer of Protoculture. Evidently, the _hin_ brought out memories that belonged to Zor, so they sent him to where they could make the best use of these resources."

"Optera?" Gnea guessed.

"No, Optera's too primitive for that."

"Haydon IV," L'ron stated, no guessing in his voice.

"Yes; and the Regent is on his way there. It is also where we must take Rick, Lisa, and Karen, if we are to save them. We can't waste any time. Uncle Scott, can you hear me?" she said into the air.

"Yes, and could you please use the radio?" Scott's exasperated voice came over their communicators.

"We need to evacuate the prisoners. Kami's recovered, but the others need help bad."

"I remember. We're on our way. By the way, Miriya's in back with Marie now, so it'll be cramped if I come along."

"Don't worry about it. I'll go ahead and teleport back to base, to brief Jean and Cabell on the situation. See ya then. Karen out." Two seconds later she disappeared in a sparkling field of energy.

**Chapter Seven:**

"Haydon IV is where I discovered our true enemy. It is hard to believe, but the being really responsible for our troubles was worshiped by the very people we were trying to help. Even out own forces were vulnerable to being led on a string by his whims. It's hard being a queen on a massive board of pawns, with the opposing king not even on the board where you can get at him."

Karen Freeman — The Plane Truth

**27 May, 2023***

Jean Grant did all she could for the four patients, but 36 hours had not brought any improvement in them. Even Miriya, who had entered the hospital dome under her own power, soon succumbed to her exposure and was in the same condition as the others. There was no other alternative; they had to go to Haydon IV. They left as quickly as they could, putting their patients into emergency hibernation tubes for the trip.

Max was just as distraught as Scott remembered his commander's counterpart to have been, elsewhen. Scott couldn't help but remember his talk he had with Shannon back there, prior to the fold back to this continuum, and drew on it to try to ease Max's concerns, during the descent to Haydon IV's surface. Max was so caught up in caring for his wife, that he hadn't had any sleep since defold, and that was over a day ago.

"Max, Miriya will be fine once we get her to the Haydonite specialists."

"How can you be so sure? And what about the baby? Dana was a handful, as just a normal child. If Karen is any indication of the results of _hin_ exposure, I'm not sure I'll be able to handle a similarly endowed child." Max looked forward to the shuttle's controls. They were entering Haydon IV's atmosphere, and Max seemed to be feeling just as helpless as Scott did, The old "Backseat pilot's" sensation being compounded by worry for the ill.

"Relax, Max. We'll get down OK. After all, Marie's the one flying this thing in your place. She has all the same reasons to be careful as you do."

"Yeah. Scott, I'm not sure I can stand this. Back when she was pregnant with Dana, we were both needed for service, regardless of condition, just because there was almost none who could take our place. We were still flying survey missions two weeks before Dana was born. Back then, before Khyron broke the peace, there was no danger of injury from our missions. Now, though, we are in the middle of a war. I keep wondering if we should retire, and raise this child as we were never able to do with Dana."

"I'm not sure, but I believe your counterpart did just that. I remember hearing the other Rick putting up a fuss about it. I think you should follow your heart. I will help you convince the others whatever decision you make."

"Dad, Scott," Marie called back on the intercom. "We're making our final approach. I suggest you two go back and help Jean and Cabell with the patients."

"Thank you, Scott. Just talking about this has made it easier to handle."

"Someone had to. C'mon, Jean needs us," Scott said, standing. He extended his hand to Max to help him up, as Max hadn't slept in three days. "Everyone needs a hand sometimes."

Their reception from the Haydonites was fairly cold, although they seemed genuinely concerned with the health of the patients. After transporting them to the hospital, Cabell and Veidt were taken to an audience with the Regent, who had arrived on the planet the day before. Max, Marie and Scott had nothing better to do but wait.

Karen Freeman wasn't having a nice day. Her senses, both ordinary and extraordinary, were barely able to handle the input she was receiving. First, their entry into the atmosphere had been rudely interrupted by the planetary defenses. Then the Veritechs were destroyed by snakelike "antibodies" that homed in on Protoculture. They then had to dump most of their weapons to escape on foot. Now this...

"What in the name of Haydon —" L'ron growled, staring at Janice, who was slipping into her android mode, right in front of half the Sentinels.

"Wh-what are you, a zombie?" Jack asked, the sight scaring him into raising his gun at her.

"No; I'm an Artificial Person, built in the Tokyo research megaplex. I've acted as Dr. Lang's eyes and ears on the Sentinels mission."

"I don't like such things — androids running around pretending they are alive," L'ron rumbled back.

"Stop it, both of you," Karen called to the two of them. "First of all, Janice, you were only reconstructed and reprogrammed in Tokyo. Your body is much older. Secondly, she is just as alive as you or me, L'ron. She had no idea she was artificial, I should know; Emil Lang and I were the only two who could access her artificial side. As for her true origin, she was originally built by Zor, based on the Haydonite life form, in a failed effort to recreate his dead lover, my genetic grandmother." The last few revelations put a profound shake in their Invid prisoners' knees. "No, I'm not Zor's granddaughter; his genetic material was never used in the creation of the Zentraedi. However, in many ways, myself, Janice, and Rem, who genetically is a clone of Zor, are his heirs. We have been put in position to further his plans to correct the wrongs of the Robotech Masters and the Invid."

"Karen, I must interface with the awareness of the planet."

"I know, Janice; lead the way."

"Hey, wait a minute!" Jack called out. "I'm supposed to be in command here!"

"Sorry, Jack," Karen replied. "I've finally decided to pull rank on you, just follow us, and watch your back."

Janice led them to a huge techno cavern, walled with instruments of an unknown function. She walked up to one of the consoles, and handed Karen the adaptor. "I am ready now, Karen, could you assist me?"

"Of course." Karen pulled Janice's hair aside, and connected the cable to the instruments, then to Janice, who started glowing. Suddenly Janice began shape shifting, as she had done before on Tyrol, only on a grander scale. For a second, she looked as her old self, then as an android. Through various forms she passed; Karbarran, Praxian, Spheresian, Human, Haydonite, Garudan, Perytonian, Invid, sometimes appearing as someone identifiable. The light grew brighter and brighter and the noises grew louder as the changes quickened. Suddenly, it all stopped, and Janice was in her human form once again, swinging the interface cord around in her hand.

"Are you alright?" Bela asked.

"I'm fine. I found out what we needed to know. Karen, I found out that I have more capabilities and potential than you and Emil could have realized. But that's beside the point now. The others need our help in Glike, above us." She walked over to a column, and opened an elevator there.

At first, everybody seemed rooted to the spot, but Jack finally took the initiative. "Let's move!" he yelled, moving to the elevator. "They need us."

Karen Penn was the last to come out of the _hin_ coma, although Miriya was still being observed and treated. Before much celebrating could take place, word came that the Regent demanded their presence before him to face charges against them. Soon, all of the Sentinels in Glike, save the Haydonites, were gathered in an improvised cell in the Hall of Healing. Cabell was the last to arrive accompanied by Veidt. Shortly thereafter, Cabell was advising them of a forthcoming jailbreak (in pig Latin?!), and things began to happen. Jean monkeyed with the Haydonite medical equipment, causing it to emit all kinds of malfunction alarms. She then started yelling at the guards, saying something about a relapse. After a second or so passed, Karen, Rick, and Lisa started undergoing what appeared to be a cross between an epileptic fit and a horror movie death scene. Even Miriya slumped into a chair and started screaming.

Scott was totally confused, and so were the Invid guards. Then he saw Vince draw back into the shadows, and draw one of his Weasels he had hidden in stealth holsters under his arms. Jean seemed to be luring one of the two enforcers toward one of the consoles.

"What does all this mean? Explain?" the Invid demanded.

"It's all right there on the middle scanner! See?" As the Invid took a closer look, Jean pulled a high voltage power cable loose from the neighboring equipment and stuck it against the Invid's armor, sending it into convulsions. Vince shot the second Invid through the head with the Weasel's explosive bullets, dropping it as well.

"Do you think they got off an alert?" Max asked.

"Probably not, but that doesn't mean we're in the clear," Wolfe replied, grabbing the electrocuted Enforcer's rifle. They had been fortunate that the Regent's Enforcers did not have integral weapons as did those of the Regis, or else they would still be virtually unarmed. Vince tossed his two Weasels to Rick and Scott, taking the rifle off the one he had shot. Lisa grabbed the one handgun carried by the two guards, to Scott's surprise. She had changed dramatically under the tutelage of Bela.

As they rounded the corner, the were met by Veidt, who led them to an awaiting escape carpet and disguises. They flew to a building overlooking one of Glike's main highways. It had been discovered that the Praxians were being used as slaves by the Invid here, and that a group of slaves would be passing by soon.

One of the Praxians refused to reenter the slave area when the group arrived. Normally, their guards would simply activate the recalcitrant slaves headband, incapacitating it. This time, however, the headband didn't work, thanks to other Haydonites who had sided with Veidt. Others joined her, and the Invid raised their weapons to eliminate the troublemakers, Vince, Rick, Lisa, Scott and Jon eliminated them instead.

Meanwhile Jack, Karen Freeman, and the others rose toward the slave pen's command post, mostly unaware of what was occurring outside.

**Chapter Eight:**

"There are none so blind as those who will not see..."

- Ray Stevens, "Everything is Beautiful"

**28 May, 2023***

As the carpet settled toward the ground, Lisa jumped clear, dumping her disguise. She fired her Invid pistol in the air, then announced herself to the Praxians.

"Warriors of Praxis! We are the Sentinels, allies of your great fighter Bela! We've broken free of the Regent and we mean to raise rebellion! Are you with us?" The responding battle cries and cheers needed no translation. "The power to the slave bands is out, but we're not sure how long that will last. We have to strike at once! Your queen and your sisters are right there in the central slave pen."

A quick discussion resulted in a battle plan. They would simply walk right in, and hope none noticed the absence of guards. In the confusion, they made it all the way to the slave pen's armory, where the lead Praxian made short work of the guard, but not before more Enforcers showed up. When the alarms went up, the Sentinels made their move, heading for the guard station that was the first real obstacle to the liberation of the Praxians. They were spotted as they entered the station, but the guards never had a chance.

"We have to disable both this station and the command center if we plan on getting the Praxians out," Veidt said.

"No problem," Wolfe said, pushing the buttons that opened all the blast doors, then frying the controls with Invid rifles.

"Real creative, Jon," Scott said in a sarcastic voice.

That's one problem down, but they'll be sending reinforcements here any time now."

"Then, Lisa, may I suggest we make ourselves scarce?" Scott said, reloading the Weasel with a clip Vince had hidden in his boot.

"Jon, Karen; you two hold off any late arrivals," Rick ordered as he adjusted the shoulder strap of his Invid rifle into something more suited for human use, as what was a light gun for an Enforcer would require considerable bracing for use by a normal human. "Everyone else, follow me. Any objections?"

"We're with you, Rick," Scott replied. "I never thought of you and Lisa as the 'Spartacus' type, though."

"Cute, Scott. Now if you're through with the movie trivia, lets get going."

Jack and his squad opened fire almost as soon as the door opened. The mostly unarmored personnel were quickly disposed of, although one Enforcer was a hard nut to crack with Janice supplying the nutcracker in the form of a LAW.

"Jack," Karen Freeman called to her commander. "I've gotten a telepathic fix on the other groups. They're on their way to Arla-non's location. Jan, can you find us a quick way to the pens?"

"Right here," Janice replied, touching another pillar and revealing yet another secret elevator. "We have to hurry; Invid reinforcements are on their way."

"Then, let's go," Jack said, stepping through the elevator. "And bring our guests along too. They might sill be useful." The Invid they had brought along from Garuda were reluctant but weren't about to do anything rash, being guarded by Gnea and Bela, who probably would have already killed the prisoners had they been commanding. "Jan, it's too bad you weren't functional back in the Macross days; then our trip out here would have never been needed. Your knack for finding things is incredible."

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Baker. Besides, the Protoculture matrix didn't want to be found, so there was no way I could have found it."

"You make it sound as if it had a mind of its own."

"It did, although it wasn't what you would normally consider a mind."

"Forget I brought it up."

Rick's band found Arla-Non and many other Praxians on the third sub-level, in cages suspended from the ceiling. Once freed, the Praxians went about sending squads to release the others. However, as they returned the way they had come, they received bad news. Enforcers both the normal type and the Regent's larger guards, had the exit blocked, and they were sending in the big Inorganics to clean house. Wolfe had to blow the entrance to slow the latter down.

The first Odeons arrived, only to be shattered by the combined forces of the weapons that the retreating Praxians had 'liberated' form the Invid arsenal. A second wave arrived, and as if it fell, a door opened up on a nearby column. The cavalry had arrived, bringing with it an escape route. The wounded and the Sterlings were the first sent up, along with Veidt, who was needed to convince Vowad who was right and who was wrong.

"I guess I don't look like my PR photos, huh?" Janice said to a mildly surprised Rick and Lisa.

"You look pretty damn good to US, Jan. Uh-Oh." Metallic footsteps were closing again. "Get ready, Jan, here we go again."

Karen soon saw that her fighting, while not unneeded, were not as important as caring for the wounded topside. She tossed her RL-6 missile launcher to a Praxian, then teleported to Max and Miriya's location, just as a Crann pulled itself into view.

"Oh, shit! Miriya, get down! I'll protect us," Karen said trying a new aspect of her telekinesis she had discovered while traveling in Haydon IV's underworld. A shimmering hemisphere surrounded them, as Max moved away to attack the Inorganic. The shield wouldn't protect them from a direct hit from the Crann's laser, as she was only able to deflect physical attacks reliably, but the explosions caused by any near misses would have their concussions and shrapnel stopped cold. The shield was unnecessary, though. The Crann ignored the Praxians and humans, turning its fire upon the Haydonites. Sarna knocked her father / creator out of the danger area, only to be caught in the focus of the laser. Karen dropped her shield, and both Max and Miriya ran to Sarna's aid. Karen felt like hitting herself. The secret to defeating the Crann had been staring her in the face, and she didn't see it until now.

"Concentrate your fire on the legs! Stagger it!" She yelled to the Praxians, who lowered their aim. When it started to lose its footing, Karen unleashed a bolt of telekinetic energy at it, knocking the hapless Inorganic clear of the building to fall to its destruction in the street below. Karen now sensed that Sarna was dying and for once she was helpless in the matter.

Then Sarna's agony passed, to be replaced by Vowad's pain and self-incrimination. The truth had dawned on him now, that no creature, no culture, is an island, once it has touched another, and that the suffering of one detracts from all. Reality on the artificial world seemed to shudder, making all pause, then antibodies similar to those of the underworld appeared. These antibodies were different, though. They all had the form of a humanoid, a specific one at that. In order to work on the Invid's deepest fears, the antibodies were the shape of Zor. They set upon the Invid, both alive and unliving, destroying them in contained explosions, almost implosions. The tide turned again with the Sentinels.

**Chapter Nine:**

"Despite my need to go back with the others, I feel drawn again toward Janice and Rem. They are a part of my life, now; more so than Marie ever was. Jan and I are like two sides of the same coin, both only now learning of our true selves; and neither of us completely understand either ourselves or our feelings toward Rem. Is it love or something more or less different than that emotion? Only time will tell."

— Journal of Karen Freeman

Rick had just sent Jack, Karen Penn, and Veidt out to rescue Rem, and Karen Freeman was fidgeting around, knowing that the rescue was out of her hands. She wandered around almost aimlessly the impromptu command center set up in the former slave pens, accompanied by Janice.

"Karen, I'm scared."

"Don't worry. Rem will be all right."

"How did you know I was referring to him?"

"It's fairly obvious. We don't really know too much about Zor, and almost nothing about Haydon, but in you and the Haydonites they created true life, not just living machines. You love him, and you are afraid he might be..."

"Dead, Karen? You seem to have the same fears. You said that Zor created me in the image of your genetic grandmother, but I'm a shape changer, at least partly, and my human look is partly due to holography. What did she look like? What kind of person was she?"

"She spoke to me only for a while before purging herself from your systems but I also saw images of the real Musica through Rem's latent memories form Zor. She was very beautiful; her hair color was the same as Mom's and she had beautiful violet eyes; those eyes are much the same in your current form, hers perhaps a bit darker. She was a singer, with incredible vocal range and a composer's mind. She was also very brave, and loved Zor very much, and would have followed him anywhere he asked. In the end of her human life, she sacrificed herself to protect Zor. It was her sacrifice that set current events into motion."

"Why was I built?"

"Zor hoped to recreate her, using her history, his memories and the results of a post mortem mind scan done by the Masters as an attempt to discover the extent of the conspiracy against them. Instead, all that resulted was an incompleteness that only served to remind him of his loss, so he shut your body down and stored you in his SDF-1 quarters. It was there that Lang found you in 1999, during the second expedition into the ship. It took 15 years to rebuild you and reactivate you with a new core memory, with Zor's programming present but unbreakable, at least without the password. I discovered it in my probings and used it only for the persona to purge herself after a short conversation. You have no way of recalling that data, but your emotional center is the same as hers; let it be your guide." Their dialogue was interrupted by Lisa calling out to her husband.

"Rick, we've got a problem."

"What is it?"

"We're picking up new deep space blips on the detectors," a Haydonite continued explaining, once Rick had made his way across the room. "We think they're Invid."

"Can't you be more precise?"

"Not until they close to within two light-seconds."

"Admiral," Karen ventured.

"Yes, Karen?" Rick replied.

"I can attempt a mental scan, if you want me to."

"By all means, if it will give us a better idea of what we're up against."

"I reaching out now," Karen said concentrating on the ship's area. "We're not up against anything!"

"Huh?"

"The Regent is! The blips are three ships from Tyrol, one of them commanded by Breetai! They're reinforcements for us, not the Invid."

"Thank God."

"Sir, we're picking up an escape pod launch into space from the last known position of the Regent. He's going to escape sir."

"We'll get him next time. He can't run forever," Rick said mostly to himself. "Try to contact Breetai as soon as possible. We have to be brought up to date on the Tyrol situation. By the way, any word from the rescue mission?"

"They were successful, sir, and on their way to the Halls of Healing."

"Good, Karen, take Janice and go to him. He'll be all right now."


	8. Book Two, Part Eight

**Part Eight: Not Dead Yet**

**Chapter One:**

"The sudden rise of Colonel Riley was hard to explain, without knowledge of his background,. All we knew is that an upstart young pilot managed to depose his two commanders, yet remain in their graces; then he started manipulating the Plenipotentiary Council. It just didn't make sense..."

-Lisa Hayes Hunter, Recollections

**29 May, 2023***

The cleanup in Glike and the rest of Haydon IV, began literally as the dust was settling. Some celebrated, others mourned, while discussions began on the direction of the Sentinels mission after this victory. Karen Penn and Jack Baker were watching over Rem, whom they had rescued an hour before, in his treatment room. They were joined by Karen Freeman and Janice Em, both of them plainly showing their concern for the fallen clone, confusing Penn and Baker thoroughly, as there seemed to be no jealousy in their relationship. If anything, Karen and Janice seemed to be supporting each other in this time of crisis. Penn and Baker had just left the others alone in the room, when the sounds of an emergency came through the door. Jean Grant came through the door, half out of breath.

"Karen; I know it's a bad time, but I need some assistance. Miriya Sterling's just been brought back in, in a coma. I'm hoping you might hold some knowledge that could help us in this situation."

"I'm not sure if Janice or I'll be of much help, but we'll try."

They were led across the hall, where Miriya's old treatment room was now reoccupied. Max looked terrible, the way he had looked to Scott and the others in their universe, Karen thought. She was thankful that the prolonged exposure of her parents and the others had kept them unconscious during the battle and aftermath on that other Haydon IV, as they couldn't have handled the stress so soon after recovery that the less-exposed Hunters and Karen Penn had undergone.

"Jean, the best I can tell you is to treat the symptoms. I've already mentally checked her over. Both mother and daughter are doing fine. I can give you one piece of advice; reread my prenatal files. You can expect a lot of the same from baby Sterling. I don't know if she'll have any powers or not - this pregnancy is further along than I was when Kayra was exposed, and may have been out of the adaptability range, but be prepared for a short full-term pregnancy."

"How short?"

"Longer than Mom's, but it won't be anywhere near 9 months, so keep a close eye on her as well. Even though you were her doctor in both dimensions, neither you or your doppleganger ever realized how close to dying Mom came a number of times. It was only due to my becoming aware of the danger to my unborn self that I instinctively used my powers to save her life a dozen different times. Miriya may have the same problem, without help from the baby."

"And you are positive your diagnosis is correct?"

"As far as it goes. It was only due to MY powers that Kayra survived long enough to leave Haydon IV, let alone return to this universe."

"Very well, then. I guess that means that regardless of the Sentinels' council's decisions, Max, Miriya, and I will be left here."

"As it was elsewhere; at least Cabell will remain behind as well. He had always heard stories from Zor about this world, but had never actually set foot here before. Now that he's here, he wants to learn more. Take care of them all for me."

"Where are you going?"

"I have seen the near future. Tomorrow, it will be decided that Vince, Jon, Breetai, and Scott go back to Tyrol to answer the charges against us. I will be with them. Janice and Rem will go with the Sentinels on their mission to Spheris, as he will regain consciousness tonight. Don't worry about Vince. He will be safe the whole time, until you are reunited with him before Optera. I have foreseen it."

"Thank you for telling me, Karen. You go get some rest now, and get Jack to get some, too. It's been over a day since either of you had any sleep."

"Yes, ma'am. I just hope he can be pried away from Lt. Penn before they realize they're being nice to each other and kill each other."

"Rem?" a feminine voice called to him in the Haydonite night.

"Who is it?"

"Someone who is very glad to see you alive," she said, climbing onto his bed and kissing him. The next few minutes found him falling asleep in her arms after a quick bout of lovemaking.

He awoke in the morning, and she was gone. He first thought it was only a dream, then he looked under the sheet and found his hospital pajama bottoms wadded up near the foot of the bed. He quickly got redressed before breakfast arrived.

The council meeting resulted the way Karen had foreseen, and all the while the same old memories kept haunting Scott. It was like having someone's name on the tip of the tongue, only on a much vaster and frustrating scale. He sat in the Valivarre's small Micronian-sized area, reviewing the tapes brought along from Tyrol on the situation there. Something seemed to be screaming at him but he couldn't place it. As the Valivarre left orbit, he received a call from Rick.

"Scott, I thought I'd call you up and wish you good luck, but I've been too busy until now. Are you still studying Riley?"

"Yeah," Scott replied, one eye on Rick, the other on the record monitor." There's something about him that gives me the creeps -" Suddenly, Scott saw a rare clip of Colonel Riley smiling. "Oh God, no!"

"Scott, what is it? What's wrong?" Rick asked almost being drowned out by the announcement that the ship would go superluminal.

"Why didn't we see it before? Thomas Riley, indeed."

"Scott?"

"It's worse than we ever have ever imagined, Rick. Thomas Riley is short for Thomas Riley EDWARDS. We were such fools! We practically handed him the REF on a silver platter, and we've only ourselves to blame. I'd recognize that smile anywhere. Damn!"

The ship engaged superluminal drives, leaving both men to mull over this latest turn of events. Once again, a specter from the past had returned to haunt them.

**Chapter Two:**

"This last incarnation of Edwards acted just like his dimensional counterpart. But, I was still, slowly, remembering events as they occurred, which was no help. We should have never assumed that just because one Edwards had died on the Moon prior to the mission, that there wasn't another insinuated into our mission. Things could have been so different." - Cmdr. Scott Freeman, interview by Susan Graham for Protoculture's Privateers: SDF-3, Farrago, Ark Angel, Sentinels and the REF

**8 September, 2023***

Scott sat in the area reserved for the defendants; it might as well have been a real trial, but the situation should have been reversed. Currently, Riley/Edwards was dragging the Sentinels' names through the mud. Karen was by Emil Lang's side, technically under trial herself but not as a main conspirator. She knew it was time for the truth to be revealed, although there was nothing she could do to him with any of her myriad powers, not without disrupting her visions. He had to escape, to allow the Sentinels their ultimate victory.

"...But right is right, and treason is treason," Riley said to the council, in his conclusion. He was quite the charismatic, type, the kind that had plagued mankind throughout history. "And these people you see here... are guilty."

Lang stood, along with Karen, and they approached the podium before the rest of the council while Edward's supporters still cheered on. Lang spoke to them in his best reporting voice. "Hereby submitted under my seal as council member, the following recorded data, pertinent to these proceedings, and the testimony of Lieutenant Karen Ellison, my research assistant who served as my information gatherer on the Sentinels' mission."

The screens lit up with the images of Lang and Riley, in Lang's quarters, in the meeting Riley thought could not be recorded or monitored. As it ended, Riley stood up, objecting to the videos.

"Council members, this is a sham, a elaborate forgery on the part of Lang to save his traitorous associates -"

"I beg to differ, sir," Karen said, then addressed the council. "Other evidence has also come to light, as well. First I assure you that the tapes are authentic. The originals are being brought to you as I speak." She looked back over to Riley. "You know, you were correct earlier when you said right is right, and treason is treason! But then, who else would know better than you, Colonel Thomas Riley;" she paused for a second, then continued. "- Or should I call you by your full name, Colonel Thomas Riley... Edwards." All hell broke loose in the hall, as everyone's gaze turned to the prosecutors' table, as Edwards and Adams bolted for the exit. Both Wolfe and Lang's godson, Scott Bernard, attempted to stop the escaping leader of the Ghost Riders, but Bernard got in the way, got in the way, Edwards using the teenage to slow Wolfe down. Edwards manhandled one of the door guards, taking her weapon, and shot the other guard as well as anyone else that got in the way. The limousine was waiting for them, and they sped away before anyone could stop them.

"Attention, everyone," Justine Huxley announced to the crowd, attempting to quell the chaos in the hall." We have been asked by the head of security to evacuate the building. Civilians are to go to the nearest shelters. All military personnel and council members are to board the security force armored vehicles for transport to headquarters." The crowd filed out cooperatively, but it was a bit harder to convince some of the council it was safer outside than inside.

"Justice Huxley, if I may," Scott said approaching the council members. "You all know I was the commander of the mission that accidentally jumped dimensions in 2016. I was here on Tyrol in that other dimension when Edwards was discovered to be a traitor by your counterparts, with the same results as tonight. More memories of that night, this night, return as I speak. Edwards attacked that night with the Inorganics he had stored in the lower levels of this very building. I don't know about you, but I don't plan to be in here when those things come out of the catacombs like a swarm of killer bees." His point made, he turned and double-time toward the exit. The council members looked at each other for a second, then followed his lead.

He climbed into the same APC as Lang and Karen, where he soon had his memories verified. He reminded himself to put the security chief up for the highest award he could find. A call was forwarded to him from the Valivarre, and he used the APC's communications equipment to answer it.

"Scott, this is Jan; how are you and Karen?"

"We're fine, sis. How are the others?"

"Champing at the bit. They don't like that you two left the rest of us up here. Scott, I - Minmei!"

"What?"

"Scott, you've got to save Minmei and Lynn-Kyle! Don't you remember? They're in Edwards' HQ. You and the other Scott were the only thing that stopped Edwards from kidnaping her and killing Kyle back then!"

"I'm cut off, Jan, I'm sorry. I just now remembered, myself. There's no way I can reach them."

"But I can, Scott," Karen said. "Wish me luck." With that, Karen faded out on them.

"Damn! Janet, tell our brother that his daughter's at it again. I pray to God she knows what she's doing."

Karen teleported to the area she had sensed before as being Minmei's location, but no one was there, at least no one alive. Adam's body was sprawled by an exit, blood leaking from his mouth. There wasn't any other damage apparent, so it was safe to assume Kyle was responsible. Kyle himself was laying on his back, his abdomen blown open by an energy weapon of some sort, probably a pistol from the limited area of damage. She knelt beside his body.

"Kyle, how many times did I tell you never to turn your back on Riley," she said to herself, picking up the corpse. "You know, one of these days, I'm gonna have to stop playing God. At least you'll be out of my hair until Optera." Karen stopped, thinking about her vision of the night before. On Optera, she would die, at least that was the only way the vision could be interpreted. Beyond that, there was nothing. It was strange, one of the few times in her life she didn't have complete confidence, wavering in her beliefs about herself. Who was more important, herself or the life of another? She pushed the thought from her mind, and focused her mind on Marie, who was still on the Valivarre. Body over her shoulder, she teleported back to the Zentraedi ship. As she arrived, she sensed that Edwards' stolen SDF-7 was on its way to Optera. The end was drawing near. She sensed something about herself. It wasn't fair! The decision was even harder now.

No longer was it just her life, but those of her unborn children as well. Did she have the right to kill them as well to save the life of a friend?

"We're losing him;" Breetai rumbled, looking at Edwards' ship, just out of weapon range and gaining speed.

"Not really, Breetai," Scott said to him, standing on the 'Micronian' balcony. We know where he's heading; I've known for years. He's heading for his one ally, the Regent."

"Breetai, let me try to speak to him," Wolfe pleaded, his infatuation with Minmei still strong. "He'll talk to me, I know!

Breetai agreed to let it be done, but all that resulted was Edwards showing off the farce of a wedding he was conducting as the ship went superluminal. They had to turn back.

**Chapter Three:**

"She can't be dead! I would have felt it if she died!"

- Marie Freeman

**26 September, 2023***

Upon returning to Tyrol, they were appraised of Lang's plans. Wolfe was to leave for Earth in January aboard the fold-capable Jutland (due to be completed in three months), to warn Rolf Emerson of the danger from Edwards. If the xenophobe faction had fully taken over Earth, then his mission was to contact Tisiphone Base. Vince Grant was to return to Haydon IV aboard the Tokugawa to meet with a Karbarran force, then together the two ships would head for Peryton to join the Sentinels. Lastly, Breetai and Scott Freeman were to be the leaders of the first attack wave on Optera, hopefully to be followed by the Sentinels and Grant, as soon as Peryton was liberated. Meanwhile, Karen and Marie were talking to each other, trying to ready themselves for the upcoming mission.

"Karen, Scott saw his other self die on Optera. I'm not sure how he's going to react once he's really there."

"Don't worry about how he'll act. He should be fine, as long as you are. Worry instead about how he'll handle my-" Karen cut herself off, sensing something light years away." Marie, it's time."

"Time for what?"

"No time, to answer. Hold on." Karen grabbed Marie in an embrace and concentrated on Haydon IV. She had never tried a teleport over even interplanetary distances before, yet somehow she knew she would make it. When the light cleared from their eyes, they were in the prep room outside Miriya's hospital room in Glike. Groans of pain came from the next room.

"Quickly, put a robe and mask on," Karen instructed Marie, while doing the same." Your sister's being born as we speak."

"My sister?" Marie heard her mother scream in pain." We've got to get in there. Something's wrong!"

Jean took their appearance in stride, although on retrospect she was probably too scared for Miriya to care where the two, had come from.

"Mir! Mir! Don't do this! Please, Please, stay with me!" Max cried.

"Mom, it's Marie!" Marie called, running to her mother's other side, opposite her father. "Please, Mommy, don't leave me!"

"Jean do something!"

"I'm trying, Max," Jean said, her voice giving away the fact that there was nothing she could do.

"Don't worry, Mother; I am with you," a voice seemed to say in their heads.

"Wh-What did you say, Jean?"

"It wasn't me. Karen?"

"It's the child."

"Put your minds at rest. All will be well; you'll see." Miriya began to stabilize, and her hemorrhaging stopped. There even seemed to be a smile on her face. Soon, the baby was born and Miriya became conscious. As Jean clipped the cord, she noticed that, while the girl was not quite as developed as Karen had been, she was very close. As she held the baby in her arms, she heard the telepathic voice again.

"Thank you, Jean."

"Little girl, I should be thanking you. It was you who stopped the bleeding."

"Jean," Karen asked. "Can Marie and I hold her?"

"Why not? She probably likes you two better than me."

After receiving the newborn in her arms, Karen opened up a three-way link between them with her telepathy.

"Hello there." Marie thought/said. "I'm your big sister, Marie. What's your name?"

"Aurora. Mommy thought of you and Dana a lot."

"Aurora, this is Karen. I'm sorry, but Marie and I have to leave. We have to go after a bad person."

"Be careful, Karen. We are a lot alike. I want you to teach me to do the things that you can do."

"I'm not sure I can, Aurora. But I'll try, someday" Karen broke the contact, not wanting to lie to the child The major reason she had come had been to see Aurora before she died. "Come on, Marie. Let's go."

"But -"

"Jean, take Aurora. We have to go back to Tyrol."

"How did you know what Max and Miriya named her?"

"The baby told us. By the way, Vince is on his way here. I thought you would want to know."

"Thank you, Karen. Tell your family we miss them."

"I will." Karen grasped Marie's arm. And the faded out once again to reappear in Tiresia outside the council chamber. Exedore was exiting the room, to go up to say good bye to Breetai, and they rode back to the Valivarre with him. After the goodbyes were said, Exedore left, and the Valivarre began its journey to Optera.

**19 November, 2023***

Both Scott and Karen were sulking on the way to Optera, and it was driving Marie crazy. After talking with Janet and Shannon, she understood Scott's problem. He saw his counterpart die on the other Optera and was afraid the same thing would happen to him. Karen was different, more stand offish. The most she could do was get Karen to admit it had something to do with Scott's problem, and Breetai as well. Finally they arrived in the Tzuptum system.

Scott had remained on the bridge almost until launch time, and had to fight back his fears even then to leave Once in his Alpha, he calmed down, especially after Marie reminded him that his counterpart had died alone, whereas she would be beside him the whole way.

"Yeah, but who's going to save me from you?" Scott tried laughing it off, but it didn't work. He thrust the throttle forward and released the brakes, and the Legios soared off toward the atmosphere below, followed by the other four Legios of Highlander, Karen's with an unmanned Beta. Breetai and his troops had already engaged the Invid planet side, and it was planned for the VTs to attack the hive, if possible.

Breetai and the Regent were squaring off, as Scott had seen them do also when. He and Marie had been separated for about a minute, providing air support for the Male armors fighting against the Inorganics. He abandoned his position, heading at full thrust in Jet mode toward the dueling racial leaders. Suddenly, a Legios screamed over his head, smoke pouring out of the port and lower Beta engines, on a collision course with the Regent. He stared for a moment, then heard his wife scream.

"Karen! Bail Out! Bail Out!"

"Oh God, no!" He pushed the VT past 100%, but could not catch the runaway Legios. It exploded on impact with the Regent, the blast throwing Breetai back over a hundred meters. Scott had to mechamorph into Battloid and roll to a stop on the ground, as the blast knocked him out of the air. He ran, tears streaming, to Breetai, conceding Karen's death. There was a twenty meter crater where the Regent had stood, and not enough left to identify the former Invid leader, let alone the mecha that had vaporized him in its self-destruction. Marie went Battloid and landed beside him.

"Scott... Karen's gone."

"I - I know. No one could have survived that blast, even if she had ejected at the last moment."

"No, she's not dead. She can't be dead! I would have felt it if she died!"

"Marie, she's dead. You have to accept it! Help me with Breetai. He doesn't look too good."

"Okay," she replied weakly. "We have to get him back to the dropship. I'll take his shoulders, and you take his legs. As long as his armor's immobile like this, he shouldn't be injured by the flight."

"All right, I've got them. Lift off in three... one, two, three!" They rose, slowly at first but picked up speed as their direction changed from vertical to a sloping climb. They boarded the reentry pod as it left the lower atmosphere, where they were relieved of their burden. The retreat was on. All they could do now is wait; wait for the reentry pod to return to the ship, the retreat and wait for the Sentinels. He would also have to break the bad news to Shannon and Kayra, who had come up last from the surface and hadn't heard about Karen.

**Chapter Four:**

"The strangest things can happen when your aren't expecting them. Take a look at the log of the Korra'ti, if you don't believe me."

- Jack Baker, Upwardly Mobile.

Marie finally worked up enough courage to go into Karen's quarters, a week after the battle. It looked as if the last time she had been there, the night before Karen... died!?

"No, I mustn't think that," Marie said to herself. She was sure that the empathic link she had with Karen would have told her that Karen was dead. Instead of the pain she would have felt, the link just... disappeared. She turned to leave then noticed an envelope on the stand by the door. It was addressed to her. She opened it and sat down on the bed, then began to read.

"Marie," it began. "Ever since Garuda, I have sensed my upcoming death on Optera. I will try to escape somehow, but if you are reading this, I guess I didn't make it. I had no choice in the matter. If I hadn't done it, Scott would have. If neither of us had, then Breetai would have died. I hope that you and Scott understand. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and I couldn't bear seeing you or Aunt Kazi as widows. Take good care of him, Marie. I will always be with you in your hearts. Tell Rem, Janice, Mom, Dad, and Noel that I love them. With Love, Karen."

"P.S. There is a brain recording and cell sample container in the top dresser drawer. It holds a sample I took from Lynn-Kyle on Tyrol. Bring him back, for Minmei's sake."

"But how, Karen?" Marie asked to her absent friend. The SDF-3's Protoculture chamber had been burnt out by the enlarging of the Zentraedi over three years ago. The only chambers left were on the factory satellite, the Korra'ti, and the long-lost cloning chambers that supposedly existed somewhere under Tiresia, where the Master's clone population was created. She wasn't going to get to any of them in the near future. But it was Karen's last wish, and she would find a way to do it for her, if she had to build a chamber with her bare hands.

**2 February, 2024***

The Sentinels were in a conference aboard the Tokugawa, the Ark Angel and Tracialle having converged to this point to minimize travel time. The conference had been called to discuss the Terran council at Tyrol's proposal for a peace settlement with the Regent. Then the message from the Valivarre was relayed to them by the SDF-3. A comm tech brought the transcribed message to Vince Grant, the Tokugawa's captain, who went pale as he read it to himself.

"Vince, what is it?" Rick asked.

"The Zentraedi ship, Valivarre, has reported to the SDF-3 that ... the, Invid Regent is dead." A few cheers erupted, only to die quickly when Vince gave the Sentinels who had made them a look that indicated that there was bad news as well. "Furthermore, Valivarre reports that sixty-four casualties resulted from the raid on Optera's Home Hive. Listed as killed are sixty-two Zentraedi and Lieutenant Karen Freeman." Janice and Rem embraced each other at that news. Janice audibly crying. "The sixty-fourth casualty is Commander Breetai. He is listed as being in serious but stable condition, and comatose as a result of being too close to an explosion. The explosion was the result of Lieutenant Freeman doing a Kamikaze attack on the Regent with her crippled Legios."

Lisa was shaken by this news, as were the Praxians and Garudans who had gotten to know Karen in her time with the group. It hard to believe, but it had to be true. The seemingly omnipotent Karen Freeman was dead.

"And one more thing," Vince said. "The Valivarre, has retreated to the outer reaches of the Tzuptum system, to wait reinforcements. Thomas Riley Edwards is apparently in control of the Invid forces on Optera."

A rumbling passed through the representatives, only to be interrupted by the alert klaxon.

"Captain," a tech reported over the room's main vidscreen. "We have picked up a fold reaction 4.2 light minutes to our starboard. Do you wish to investigate?"

"I'll be right there." He turned to Rick and Lisa. "I guess you'll want to come along as well. We don't have time to transfer you back to your command."

"We understand."

"Bridge, this is Grant. Close on the bogie at point oh five light speed. The admirals and I are on our way to the bridge."

"Yes, sir."

"Sensors identify the ship as Zentraedi; a scout class ship, sir."

"Hail it."

"Sir, it's the Korra'ti, from Earth! Commander R'ykandar want's to speak with you."

"Put it on the main screen... Greetings, R'ykandar. What brings you so far from Earth, and how did you find us?"

"I didn't try to find you. The Masters arrived in the Solar System yesterday, and opened fire on my ship. If I hadn't made a blind fold, we would have been destroyed."

"The Masters? They weren't due to arrive there until 2028 at the earliest."

"What do you mean? It's 2029! At least, it was when I left. I'm afraid the Korra'ti may have time jumped again, although it didn't world jump this time, I hope."

"Did Carpenter or Wolfe inform you of our situation when they arrived on Earth?"

"Excuse me? When did they leave?"

"It's currently 2024. Carpenter left almost a year ago, and Wolfe last month."

"They hadn't got back when we left. The worst part of the Master's arrival, at least from a personal viewpoint, is that it happened during the telecast of the Southern Cross Academy's first graduation ceremony. Dana, Bowie and Noel made quite a trio in their ATAC uniforms."

"Bowie's a Hovertanker?"

"He sure is, Vince. In fact, the kids are all in the same squad. Dana's been named the new exec of the 15th ATAC. By the way, where are Max, Miriya, and the Freeman clan?"

"I'll tell you about them on the way. Set course for Optera. Breetai and Scott need us."

"Now I remember. Max and Miriya stayed behind on Haydon IV to have their kid. How are they?"

"Doing fine, although their daughter is kinda strange."

"Like Karen and Noel?"

"How did you know about them?"

"Let's just say I kept tabs on the kids, and put two and two together. How is Karen?"

"Dar, she... She died a few days ago taking the Regent with her," Rick answered.

"I'm sorry; I didn't know. It was Scott who did the suicide plunge in the other universe. I assumed that they would figure out a way to get around that method."

"Dar, come over to the Tokugawa, and we'll get you caught up as you catch us up on Earth events. It'll be a long trip at superluminal speeds."

"Sounds like a good idea. I'll have my first mate fly me over as soon as I'm micronized."

"You have a working chamber?"

"Of course."

"There are only about three dozen Zentraedi left on the Valivarre. You just may have solved our problem of how to re-man it."

**Chapter Five:**

"Never took this road before, Destination unknown..."

- 20th century song lyrics

Karen woke up on her back, a blue sky overhead. She sat up, then bent over and vomited off to the side. Much like Miriya on Garuda, she'd discovered just how much a liability that being sick from a pregnancy could be to flying in combat. Granted, she had taken on a bit much even by her own standards, but the Beta got damaged way too easily, and her attempt to use its speed as a booster to get to Breetai and the Regent quickly only ended up giving her a bigger bang when she hit the latter.

"And I thought morning sickness was bad from the inside. Morning sickness? I must have made it, then," She said to herself. "But where am I? This sure doesn't look like Optera, or any other world I've ever been to before."

She wiped her mouth, then stood up, taking in the view. A yellow sun was in the sky, and she was in a small clearing in a stand of pines. Pines! Could she be back on Earth? No, She was pushing it when she teleported herself and Marie to Haydon IV and back, what was it, a couple of months ago, real time? Then where was she?

She heard movement to her left, and turned toward it. "Who's there?" She saw a cloaked figure turn and run. She reached out with her telepathy, and got a surprise. "An elf? I'm really lost! At least I know what direction the nearest town is now." She concentrated on the image of the keep from the elf's mind, and teleported.

She reappeared in the middle of an outdoor market, but no one paid her any mind; they looked up at her when she arrived then went back to their business. "Must be used to teleporters," she muttered to herself. She hadn't gone far from her arrival point when a guard yelled at her.

"Hey, you! Come here!"

"You speak English?" she asked him, surprised.

"Not really. All guards are issued translation rings."

"Translation rings?"

"You're really confused. Is this your first time in Avalon?"

"Yes; in fact, this is my first time on this world."

"Ho, a dimensional traveler. Did you get lost? What am I saying? Of course, you're lost. You wouldn't be so confused if you had come here willingly. Come, I'll take you to the queen. Maybe she can help you get home."

He led her through the gate, and into a grand hall, reminiscent of those in Tiresia. Banners and shields adorned the walls, along with the occasional battle trophy. Two thrones were against the far wall, with a mural of six interlocked gold rings in a circle on a scarlet field above them.

"Wait here," the guard said, passing through a door behind one of the thrones. Soon, the queen entered the hall. She was about Karen's height, very beautiful, very young, and very black. Not Negroid, BLACK. A dark elf.

"How can I help you, Miss Freeman?"

"How do you know my name?"

"As you once told a friend, it's hard keeping things from a telepath. By the way, I am speaking English, not using magical means to communicate. I have been on worlds similar to your own Earth, but not your specific Earth. I've done quite a bit of traveling in my first century."

"Century? That's right, you're an elf. About our talking since we're both telepathic, couldn't we communicate a lot quicker mind-to-mind?"

"Like a Vulcan mind-meld?"

"Huh? How do you-"

"My husband and I are experienced dimensional travelers, as I implied earlier. Come on down to our study and I'll explain." She led Karen down the hall, to a set of brass doors, which swung open at her touch. Karen gasped at the room's contents.

"We have an electrical generator on an underground river below the castle," the queen, Melynda, was saying. "The gold coins our economy is based on are worth a small fortune on the technological worlds, so it was easy to acquire such amenities as these."

The room was about 15 meters square, with a hot tub, a big screen television, and a huge sound system. "The stereo belongs to my husband. He's a bard, by trade, and music is his life; after me, of course. Take a look around for a while; Yodelyn - that's his name - just called me. He's back from one his little excursions; I think he went to a concert that we missed first time around. I believe it was called Woodstock."

"Woodstock?"

"You've heard of it?"

"Yes. It took place in 1969, almost a half-century before I was born."

"Well, feel free to play anything you want. We have about 10,000 music discs on the left wall; we don't trust digital storage all that much, since we don't have easy access to computer networks and, well, energy spells could accidentally wipe a hard drive a lot easier than a power surge. Our video collection is on the right wall. There are three different selections in each behind the ones visible. Just push the buttons by the shelves to switch selections." Melynda teleported out, leaving Karen staring at the racks of discs, ranging from Laserdiscs and VCDs to DVDs and later formats that never existed on her world.

Karen walked over to the selection labeled 'R-T', and started to scan the cases, looking for the Star Trek titles when she came to an abrupt stop while still in the "R's". "What's this?" she said, pulling one of the twenty cases labeled 'Robotech' from the shelf. She put it into the player, and sat back on the couch that was in front to the TV. As one of the episodes began, she heard Melynda return, but was too entranced by the show to turn around, episode number 60. She saw Zor Prime put Dana Sterling into the escape pod, then destroy the ship, compounding Earth's problems.

"OH, MY GOD!" Karen cried out.

"What is it, Karen?" Melynda asked, pausing the videotape.

"That's... that's my Earth!"

**Chapter Six:**

"I didn't want to leave Avalon at first, but after viewing the entire series up to Edwards' defeat, I know I had to return. Of course, it was the history of the primal Robotech universe that I saw, not my own, but they were similar enough for my purposes. One other thing; many have accused me of not caring about Earth, because I refused to watch the so called 'Mospeada' (Invid Invasion of Earth) episodes. It is the furthest from the truth. I did not watch because it had been made clear to me by my hosts that within these episodes was the one path to true peace between human and Invid. Tinkering with it too much could cause only more bloodshed." - Karen Freeman, The Plane Truth

"How are they?"

"Beautiful. A boy and a girl. And to think that you weren't even showing when you showed up, three months ago. Are short pregnancies common on your Earth?"

"No, but I'm an uncommon person. I'm half-Zentraedi, like Dana and Aurora Sterling from your videotapes. And the father is Rem, the Zor-clone."

"So the videos aren't correct."

"No, they're correct, as a history of a time line that my world diverged from sometime back, the events preceding my birth being the catalyst. I was conceived in the non-space between dimensions, so I effectively sidestepped normal casualty."

"We did a little exploration for you while you've been unable to travel. We've got a general idea of where your universe is located. We think you should wait a couple of weeks, at least, before you try to return to regain your strength."

"Yeah. Also, if my abbreviated childhood is any indication, they'll be weaned by that time."

"Are you sure you should be returning to a war zone with two infants?"

"They'll be safe, as long as I don't take them back to the Tokugawa. I sense they're hungry. Bring them back in, if you've got them bathed."

"They're on their way. What have you decided to name them?"

"I've thought it over as long as I've known that I was pregnant. I'm naming them Zor and Musica, after their father's cell donor and my genetic grandmother, his lover."

"That was quite an interesting story you told us about them. Maybe you ought to make it into a television series."

"You're joking, right?"

"Not necessarily. We've had our allied magi develop spells that allow us to monitor the sights, sounds and even the thoughts of people in another universe. It would be fairly easy to modify the spells to transfer their input to video media, if we had someone professional in those areas to assist us."

"I'll think about it. If anything, I could make a unique anniversary present for the Hunters."

Three weeks later, her two children were weaned and walking, although they showed no evidence of any powers other than empathy and a somewhat limited vocabulary inherited from their mother. They were the size of two-year-olds, but most of that growth had taken place in the first two weeks. Karen had put her flight suit back on, and was holding one child in each arm. She looked at the paused frame from the Sentinels TV series, a frame of Rem and Janice together in Rem's quarters aboard the Ark Angel just prior to the attack on Optera.

"Come back soon," Melynda called to her.

"I will, when the war is over. Of course, the way dimensional travel works, I can come back here tomorrow, after spending a few years back home. I might even bring a friend or two."

Karen faded out, and Melynda got back to royal business, such as what to name her next child, due in six months. "Well, there's no doubt what I'll name it if it's a girl. That girl is one of the bravest people I've ever met."

**5 May, 2024***

"Ahoy, Valivarre!"

"Dar, is that you?" Scott called back over the audio net.

"In the flesh. My men and women are anxious to get into combat. Put Kazianna on."

"Wilco, Dar. I'm switching you to video as well."

"How is Lord Breetai?"

"Still comatose; how did you know he was hurt?"

"I folded ahead of the Tokugawa, Tracialle, and Ark Angel. They were about six hours out when I folded. We heard you were understaffed, so I was wondering if you wouldn't mind accepting a few transfers, say about 200?

"Two hundred? Won't that leave you short-handed?"

"No. Ever since Zentraedi were forbidden Earthside stations by Leonard in 2023, most of my men haven't had anything better to do with their time off than cold sleep. The 200 have been on their time off for about a month. Besides, the Korra'ti still has the capability to create new personnel."

"Dar?" Marie interrupted.

"Yes, Marie?"

"Speaking of your cloning chamber, I was wondering if I could 'borrow' it for about an hour. It was Karen's last wish that I clone someone."

"Sure. Fly on over. Have I got some stories to tell you about your little sister. Now, don't act stupid; as I told Vince and Admiral Hunter, I was able to figure it out by watching the two girls grow up. If it will make you feel any better everyone else paid so much attention to the 'little sisters' they didn't notice the resemblance to you, not even Rolf."

Dar, still micronized, and Marie talked for over two hours, while the clone of Lynn-Kyle was growing. He told her of the rise of Anatole Leonard's faction in the RDF, to the point they'd all but renamed it back into the Armies of the Southern Cross and caused all kinds of friction with the colonies, and the many misadventures of teen Dana Sterling and company. Finally, the actual cloning was complete. Now came the hard part.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"Yes, and I'm putting in as part of the regular procedure from now on. These software and hardware modifications were developed by Karen and me to bring out inherited memories and sync them with existing personality recordings."

"Have they ever been tested?"

"Yes, though the version I'm using is actually more of the Masters' version than the version we developed on Earth. We brought back all the SDF-1 bridge crew except Gloval this way, as well as Roy Fokker - getting usable brain scans from cryonic storage would have been a lot easier had we had the Tyrolean software, but we managed. We left the clones in charge of the secret backup facility we set up to serve as an alternate to Fortress Gloval."

"How long will it take?"

"About an hour, this time, but on future cloning it won't take any longer than a normal cloning."

An hour later, Lynn-Kyle staggered out of the cloning chamber, appearing not much older than he had been when Karen and Marie first met him in 2017.

"Where am I?"

"Would you believe, back from the dead?"

"Minmei! Where is she?"

"Edwards still has her, in the Home Hive on Optera. We're waiting for the Sentinels to arrive to back us up. You're on the Korra'ti. It folded here from Earth, albeit indirectly, and it's the only reason you're not still a cell sample in a test tube. You might want to get some clothes on before you catch cold."

"Clothes? I'm sorry. I was so confused coming out of the chamber like that, I wasn't totally aware of my surroundings." He walked over to the screen and put on the REF uniform waiting for him.

"Don't sweat it. Both 'Uncle Dar' and I can vouch for that. I was so confused when Karen cloned me that I thought she was my mother for a few minutes."

"You're a clone?"

"Yeah. Karen cloned me from Dana Sterling back in 2017. It was her last wish for me to bring you back, to help rescue Minmei and defeat Edwards once and for all."

"Last wish? You mean she's dead?"

"Everybody else seems to think so, but I've had my doubts. We shared a mental link, and it was broken cleanly, not with the pain feedback that would have resulted from her death."

"How long until the Hunters arrive?"

"Within the hour. After that we start making plans for our attack. Will you be with us?"

"For Minmei, I would do anything to save her from that monster."

"I guess that's an affirmative."

"Captain R'ykandar!" a voice boomed over the intra ship system.

"What is it, Gamaliel?"

"The other ships have arrived."

"Have my shuttle prepared. I'll be departing for the Ark Angel immediately with my two guests to begin plans for the assault."

**Chapter Seven:**

"Colonel T. R. Edwards' actions with the `Special Children' has been said to prove how the `Nintendo Generation's' minds were rotted by the meaningless garbage (mostly superficial fighting games with excessive violence) that dominated the game market between 1986 and 1999. The old video game market out-grew its technology until the Global War, and very few pre-war games survived the transition to fully interactive, lifelike gaming enabled by the first computer tech spin-offs from the SDF-3. Ironically, a 'retro-game' wave of primitive graphic games and re-releases of decades old games resulted as almost a backlash in 2008, since so many peace groups campaigned that the immersive simulator systems (almost all combat games) were 'recruiting tools for the fascist world government'. One has to wonder what those activists thought as the sky above them filled with alien ships in 2011, moments before their deaths."

- Tracy Hite, From Bushnell to Nichols: a History of Video Gaming 1972-2030

**6 May, 2024***

Karen teleported in, interrupting a tender moment between her two friends. It had been quite a strain, more than she expected, and she staggered back and fell onto Rem's bed.

"Rem, I - Karen!" Janice was caught short.

"Huh? She's supposed to be dead!"

"So was Edwards. Get Jean, quick!"

"I'm on my way!" He tore out the door, heading for the sick bay.

"Karen, can you hear me?"

"Jan, how are the children?

"They look fine. Here, let me get them out of the way." She picked them up and put them on the couch in the living room area of the suite. Despite being teleported, then being in the arms of someone who fainted, they were still asleep. Janice went back to Karen's side and turned her around on the bed into a more natural position.

"Karen, where have you been, and where did you get the children? Where are their parents?

"I can't describe where it was; it was quite different from here. I'll tell you after the battle. As for Zor and Musica, their mine, mine and Rem's. I want you two to raise them."

"You've got to be kidding. I don't know the first thing about child-rearing -"

"And you never will, unless you take me up on this. Sure, I love Rem, but not as much as you two love each other. This will be your one chance to be a real family. We didn't plan it this way, but think of me of just being a surrogate mother. Those children are as much yours as mine, and I don't want to hurt you by take Rem away from you."

"What about the children? What if they ask where there mother went to?"

"Jan, They're only three weeks old, despite their appearance. They know who I am, and what I want to do; they are genetically similar to me, so they were born aware. I've discussed it with them. They want a family. It's something I can't give time."

"I'll have to talk with Rem about this."

"Fine. I'm sure he'll agree with me. But please, if anyone asks, I found them. The last thing I need is Scott or Dad to butt into my life again, at least in this manner."

Jean and Scott burst into the room, Scott running up and hugging Karen. "We thought we'd lost you!" he cried.

"I wasn't sure I was going to make it, myself. How's Marie?"

"She's on her way back over from the Korra'ti, where she just cloned Lynn-Kyle."

"I knew Dar would come. It was the one thing I sensed past what I thought would be my death. Jean, all I need is a good meal."

"As best as I can tell, Karen, you're right."

"Good. Help me to my feet. I'm still a little unstable, but that'll change once I eat. I'll even be able to go planet-side with the landing party."

"Now, I wouldn't be so sure about that. We'll see before they launch."

Scott had been meeting with the Sentinels who had volunteered for a possible insertion attempt into the hive, when all hell broke loose. Technically, they were still trying to negotiate for Edwards' surrender but Scott, of all people, knew what that would result in - wasted time. So, he held the meeting while Rick was trying to contact Edwards. They exited the sit room onto the bridge as the conversation was beginning to get interesting.

"-four vessels coming around the dark side. Three troopships; one Robotech fortress," a tech was reporting.

"Ready, all Stations," Lisa said, looking as if she was about to rip the arm rests of the command chair off and throw them at the vidscreen.

"Ready, sir."

"Veritechs standing by," Lynn Armana called to the ridge over the tac net. "Sure you won't join us, Skull Leader?"

"I've got more exciting things planned, cousin," Scott replied. One thing Scott had overlooked about the Sterlings 'retirement' was, that as their third-in-command, he would become only the fourth person in history to hold that title.

"So, Freeman, you and your wife have joined the party too. Let me be the first to tell you; you're no Roy Fokker," Edwards remarked snidely from the vidscreen.

"Well, that's true, but then you're no Benedict Arnold. He didn't betray all of humanity."

A tech interrupted. "Enemy closing to engage. We've got multiple paint signals."

Rick screamed at the gloating Edwards. "We're coming for you, you bastard!"

"I'm waiting for you, Hunter! Bring your wife and those pathetic Freemans too! Minmei and I have been dying to have you over."

"Edwards, you -"

"Nothing but us ghosts down here, Hunter! My past, your past, all wrapped up in one tidy bundle."

"What's going on our there?" Lisa called out. "These aren't Invid or REF tactical formations."

"They look like - video games?" a bridge officer, one of the 30 year veterans of the fleet, put forth haltingly.

"Give me a closeup of the lead mecha," Rick called out. "Oh my God!"

"Destroy that THING!" Lisa was screaming. It was a grotesque parody of Lisa, with guns for breasts.

"I wasn't sure I got the measurements right, Admiral. Are the proportions correct?"

The scanners were picking up other types now, obscene versions of Rick, the Sterlings, Grants, and the Freemans, Dr. Lang and Minmei.

"You're insane, Edwards!"

"And loving you for it. Welcome home, Hunter. Welcome to your worst nightmare!" Edwards signed off.

"Lynn, keep Skull back!" Scott called out. "Destroy those monstrosities rom a distance. Fall back as you fight if you have to. Relay the order to the other squadrons!"

"Admiral, the Tracialle has launched its dropships. The Valivarre and Korra'ti are launching pods and power armors, to protect the Tokugawa. The enemy ships are all on a collision course with General Grant's ship!"

"Keep us updated on the conditions on the surface. Skull Leader, How is the mecha situation?" Scott was stationed in front of the threat board now, keeping watch on the battle.

"The Invid have taken 70% losses and we've lost 23 Alphas and 8 Betas. The battle is winding down; it should be over in the next five minutes, with minimal further losses."

"Thank you, Scott. Lisa, I request a pass by the ship over the hive complex, to drop off Commander Freeman's insertion team."

"Will you be going with it?"

"Yes."

"Then permission granted, if I go as well. After all, T. R. did invite us down."

"I'm going, too," Karen said aloud, no one having notice her arrival on the bridge.

"The hell you are," Scott snapped at her.

"Why? Admiral, I'm fully capable of going into combat. All I needed after my reappearance was a little recovery time and I've had more than enough. Dr. Grant can vouch for me."

"Rick, I'm receiving a message from the Tokugawa. Jean confirms Karen's story."

"Thank you. Scott, you're overruled. She goes. Besides, how could we stop her if she really wants to go planet-side?"

"You're right. Welcome aboard, Lieutenant."

**Chapter Eight:**

"Yes, I am the warrior, and victory is mine!"

- 20th century song lyrics

Karen and Lynn-Kyle had stayed with Rick, Lisa, Scott, Marie, Rem, and Janice on the initial penetration of the hive. After a battle against what could best be described as 'Fokker-Things', they continued until they caught the tail end of a battle between a group of Ghost Riders and most of the other members of the insertion squad. Only the Spherisians were absent. The Praxians had to be evacuated, so Kami volunteered to take charge of that detail. Baker and Penn had been describing their short period of captivity to Rick and Scott, who listened intently.

"You're certain it was Minmei?" Rick and Kyle asked simultaneously.

"Yes, and she didn't look too thrilled to be there, either. Edwards is holding her prisoner."

"My guess is that her behavior since the departure from Tyrol has been the result of a form of mind control," Karen added. "It's quite possible that his power over Invid, coming from one of their brains, could also be focused on humans but at a great cost. Minmei was blind to his motivations until it was too late, and she became a weapon."

"Save the speculation," Rick said. Thinking back, Rick thought about the fact that Minmei had been used as a weapon before; both willingly against Dolza, and unwillingly by those responsible for the Lorelei project. Why is it that the most innocent are the first to be dragged into violence? "Let's get organized. Scott, Marie, Lisa, and I will continue on with Learna. Maybe we can beat Edwards to the Genesis Pit and surprise him there. Penn, Baker; we'll have to assume that Baldan and Teal are still on track. See if you can catch up with them."

"But how are we going to find them?" Jack asked.

"Use this," Rem said, removing and handing over his direction-finder backpack. "I have a feeling I won't be needing it."

"The rest of you, go after Minmei. Karen, have you gotten a fix on her yet?"

"Yes, Admiral. We should have no problem."

"Good. Let's go." The group split up once again.

The three Invid clamships were little more than space debris, falling to the guns and mecha of the Korra'ti. REF Zentraedi Pods, Power Armors, and the Korra'ti's ASC Cosmic Assault Unit squad in their Battloids all made their marks, each group playing a major part in the destruction of the vehicles. Edwards' SDF-7 wasn't as easy to stop, however. Vince Grant's ship, the Tokugawa, couldn't shake the death ship, and had to be abandoned before the faster and more powerful Kamikaze ship reached it.

The Tokugawa's crew had relocated to the Valivarre, where they watched their ship's destruction.

"Lady Kazianna, General Grant;" R'ykandar called from the Korra'ti. "Do have any further orders?"

"The insertion was successful, but Kami and the three Praxians were being evacuated. Arla-non is listed as dead, Gnea as wounded. Excuse me; there's been an update. Learna has been wounded, and is retreating to the evac point as well."

"Go down and assist the Karbarran assault teams with your mecha squads. The Invid will do a double-take!"

"Yes, sir, General. By the way, how is Lord Breetai?"

"He's still drifting in and out of consciousness," Jean replied. "He's improving, but I can't say exactly when he'll recover enough to resume his duties."

"I'll be up to see him when I get back. I'll see all of you them."

"You want us to WHAT?" Scott asked Rick.

"Just a minute of the _hin_ won't hurt you."

"Rick, I went through hell the last time I breathed that stuff. I'm not sure I want to risk that again."

"Same here; but with Learna having to go back, it's our only chance."

"Please, Scott; it's the only way," Marie pleaded.

"For you, I will. Rick, hand me that breathing mask. I might as well be the first."

"Good. I wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of going first myself."

"Now you tell me."

Karen, Kyle, Rem, and Janice made it to what was once the Regent's quarters, now Edwards', as Minmei pulled herself out of the Regent's old nutrient pool. Then, something that had once been human bobbed to the surface, to be vaporized by Janice and Kyle's sidearms. Kyle ran to Minmei as the remnants of the mutated Benson started falling.

"Minmei, are you okay?"

"K-Kyle? Is that you?"

"Yes, Minmei, it's me. I came back for you."

"Promise me you won't leave me again."

"I won't, Minmei. I'll never leave you again. I promise."

"Minmei?" Janice interrupted, handing them Rem's jacket and her pants, creating a hologram to make up for the lack of uniform. Where did Edwards say he was going?"

"H-he went to s-somewhere called the p-pit."

"Then Rick and the others are going to run right into him," Rem said.

"No! We have to save Rick! It's my fault he's in danger!

"No, no, Minmei," Kyle told her, holding her to him. "There's nothing you could have done. I have a feeling this conflict is much older than it appears."

"Correct, Kyle," Karen replied. "It goes back to that dark night in 2011, when Dolza's fleet devastated the Earth. Now, through, it must end."

"Karen," Rem said hurriedly. "While you were talking, Jan left. I don't know what she has planned, but I have a feeling that I won't like it."

"Don't worry, Rem," Karen replied. "I'll stop her. No more lives should be wasted on senseless heroics." With that, Karen teleported out of the room.

The Hunters and Freemans fought their way toward the Genesis Pit, the hin guiding them around the traps laid by Edwards. But the _hin_ was failing now, as they neared their objective. They entered the Pit area, where Edwards was waiting for them.

"It's over," Rick called out, weapon leveled at Edwards. "Call it off and you'll walk out of here alive."

"I want to congratulate you fools on making it this far," Edwards replied, sounding like a diabolic game show host. "But as they say back home, 'the fat lady has yet to sing.' See how you like her." A hellish parody of a Wagnerian soprano rose out of the pit, only to be shot down as it began to sing a horrific version of "Stagefright".

"Didn't like that one, huh?" Edwards frowned. "How about this instead, Lovebirds?" A demonic Cupid rose out of the pit, firing bolts of energy from its bow. Rick dropped it, but soon the pit was spewing creatures of all sorts from the warped imagination of T. R. Edwards.

"Scott!" Marie called out.

"Marie, what's wrong?"

"These creatures; they're not really here!"

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure -Hey!" She was grabbed from behind by two Ghost Riders. It was only then that both she and Scott realized that her side of the conversation had been on a telepathic nature. Scott was subdued quickly as well.

Marie, can you hear me?" Scott thought to himself.

"Yes, I can! Scott. The exposure to the hin opened up something in my mind. However, it seems to be limited to reaching you and Karen. Rick and Lisa can't seem to hear it."

Edwards was currently confronting Rick and Lisa, who had been grabbed the same time as Scott and Marie.

"Marie, where is Karen? Can she help us?"

"She's on her way. That's all she would say."

Suddenly, things started going weird around them.

"Something's wrong," Edwards said to himself(?). "What's going on?"

"The shields have failed," a Ghost Rider reported from a nearby Invid commsphere, his image breaking up. "Looks like we got a bunch of damn grizzlies in the hive, General."

"Karbarrans. Get me Benson."

"He's not responding sir."

"Damn!"

"What's the matter, T. R.?" Scott called out. "Your goons abandoning you? They say the best laid plans of rats and men often go astray."

"Lieutenant," Edwards called to his goon squad, "It might be best if you and your men readied our shuttle for departure."

"What about these four?"

"We'll get along famously. Just see to it that you secure us a way out of here."

"Will they be coming along, sir?"

"No, I don't think so; at least not intact. I may keep a souvenir or two."

The Ghost Riders left, leaving Edwards alone with them, his gun leveled at the Hunters. A quick message from the Brain distracted Edwards for a split second, and both Rick and Lisa dove towards him. However, Edwards was waiting from them, having expected a move like this.

"Marie, let's help them!" Scott cried out, having been taken by surprise by the move. But Marie held him back.

"No. This is their fight, an we'd only get in the way."

The fight went against the Hunters, Edwards grabbing Lisa by the neck using her to keep Rick back as he recovered his pistol. He then threw Lisa back to Rick.

"I can't tell you how long I've waited for this."

"Why, Edwards? What's it all been about? Is it Fokker? You have more than enough reason to hate the Freemans; they've killed you twice. But why single Lisa and me out? Is it some kind of revenge against Roy that the Zentraedi! Denied you, so you decided to get it through me?"

"It was Fokker in the beginning, Hunter. I'll grant that. Fokker and all you SDF-1 heroes. You and your Zentraedi pals almost ended things for all of us."

"Come on, Edwards. It was the UEDC, you know that. Russo and..."

"Go ahead, say it: Russo and who?"

"I'm sorry, Lisa."

"Russo and HAYES," Edwards finished Rick's sentence. "Let's not forget your wife's old man, Hunter. It was his idea as much as anyone else's to use the cannon."

"Then why blame us? Gloval was against it - we all were."

"You really don't know, do you?" Edwards said, wincing in pain from feedback over the headband that was resulting from Baldan and Teal's assault on the Invid Brain. He held in his other hand a piece of charred metal, the faceplate his original self had worn and that had been recovered by the first clone as a gift to the second. "This is why I hate the two of you. Didn't you ever wonder why I had to wear this? Probably not, but maybe if I told you how it happened you'd begin to get the picture. You see, I was there that terrible day in 2011. I was at Alaska Base."

"But... but that's impossible," Lisa gasped.

"Oh no. Not impossible. You remember where you were, isolated from the rest of the base. I was there; I was in the command center when you and your father said your last good-byes."

"But I thought... I saw the screen go dark. I was sure -"

"But you never bothered to check! Neither of you!"

"Edwards, I -"

"You what, Hunter? I saw the two of you leave... She was on your lap, wasn't she? Such a cute pair; meant for each other." The head band evidently was causing him a great pain, and he pulled it off into his free hands. "I called out to you, Hunter... I crawled across that molten glass terrain on my belly praying for you to hear me. You left me in hell up there, and I'm going to do the same for you. First, I'm going to make you watch your friends die, then you will follow, ladies first. Now move."

"Don't do this, Edwards," Rick pleaded. "I'm the one who left you behind. Let them go."

"The hero right to the end, huh? Well, save it. The only thing that has kept me alive was thinking about how I was going to pay you back. There's nothing you can say that can change that."

"Maybe there's something I can say, T.R." Everyone turned and saw Minmei standing there, battered and in torn clothing. "Let them go, T.R. You've lost everything you worked for. But you can still have me, if you let them live. I'll do whatever you ask."

"Minmei, no!" Lisa screamed.

"Oh what a day for heroism! And what a sweet thing is revenge! Come to me, my pet."

Minmei stood there looking at him. "You'll let them go, then?"

"Sorry, love but you know how it is: I have to do what I have to do."

"And so do I, T.R. I had to give you one last chance, and you blew it." Her voice changed as did her image. Before them stood Karen, a look on her face that neither Scott nor Marie had ever seen before, nor did they ever wish to see it again. "Look into my eyes, Edwards. Look into my eyes and know that Karen Noel Freeman is the one sending you to the deepest pits of Hell."

"Noel Freeman? How?" he cried.

"Your ally Zand never knew the truth. The child on Earth is but a clone of myself, cloned by me to hide my unnatural growth. He will not live long enough to feel my wrath. That wrath will be the last thing you will ever know." The two's eyes were locked on each other, neither bending. Suddenly, though, Edwards started convulsing.

"Hunter, Save me!" he screamed, but everyone else seemed to be in shock from the battle. Edwards' flesh began to shimmer, then run like melted wax, followed by his musculature. And organs, him screaming all the while. Then the screaming echoed and died, and the scorched bones of what had been humanity's greatest traitor collapsed into its uniform and the greasy substance that had been his flesh.

Karen slumped to one knee, the horrified Hunters and Freemans staring at her and what was left of Edwards. They were still staring, speechless, a minute later when R'ykandar's REF-style officer's pod burst through the far walls.

"It is over," Karen said, standing. "We have won. The tides of darkness have been stemmed once more."

But all the others could do is stare at her.

**Chapter Nine:**

"The journey home is always filled with thoughts of what could have been and what is yet to be."

- Marie Freeman

Rem, Minmei and Kyle came across Janice in the hallway outside the Genesis Pit area, shut down. They carried her the rest of the way to the Pit, where Karen reactivated her, then they were picked up by a shuttle craft from the Korra'ti. Scott and the others were dropped off aboard the Ark Angel, but Karen gathered her equipment from it and the Valivarre and moved permanently to R'ykandar's ship. As the story of the last events in the hive circulated, people started giving Karen more and more room, often actively avoiding her. Her family, while trying to understand what had happened was still shaken badly by her actions. Marie, her best friend, couldn't gather up enough confidence to speak with her until just before the ships left on the return journey to Tyrol, two months after the battle.

From Skull, Highlander, and the Sentinels: Prelude to Light

By Marie Sterling Freeman.

"Breetai was released from the Valivarre's sickbay a week before the scheduled departure for Tyrol. It was at this time that it was made known that Kazianna Hesh was pregnant with his child, and much rejoicing took place on both the Korra'ti and Valivarre. By the time we reached Tyrol, there were over a dozen confirmed pregnancies among the Zentraedi, as well as at least another dozen that weren't apparent until after arrival. I had been feeling under the weather as well, and I almost fainted when Jean told me that I was pregnant! Scott did faint, as he realized that I had been pregnant when we had breathed the _hin_ in the assault on the Home Hive.

"The Korra'ti, Valivarre, and Ark Angel limped out of the Tzuptum system together. The two REF ships had suffered damage to their drives in the battle, and were barely capable of superluminal speeds, whereas no one trusted the Korra'ti's fold engines. Three of the last five folds had been totally unasked for, at least in results, and nobody even wanted to THINK about pushing those odds. Rem and Janice moved over to the Korra'ti for the trip, so that Karen could help them with the two children she had 'rescued' (It wasn't until 2035 that we were told by Rem of the children's true origins, though we obviously suspected at least who their mother was). It would take us nearly six months to reach Tyrol.

"I was very large by the time, five months later, that Kazianna gave birth to Drannin. Scott was getting worried that another Karen was on the way, but those fears were eased by a visit with Jean Grant. Sonograms indicated that I was going to have twins! Of course Scott fainted again! (You'd think he'd be used to bombshells like those by now!) Lisa Marie Freeman and Miriya Parino Freeman were born six weeks after Drannin, and were perfectly normal identical twins, as far as we knew. That they shared the same powers as the other "SDF-Brats" wasn't apparent until after the Sterlings returned to Earth, and they met their aunt Aurora.

"Emil Lang had a few surprises for us when we finally reached Tyrol. The main one was that it was four years later than we thought it was. Scott, Karen and Dar got into a long discussion with Lang, Burke and Cabell, and they came up with an incredible plan. They would use the Korra'ti's strangeness to our advantage, to have a chance to get back to Earth right after the Korra'ti had left. The Korra'ti had already proven that the old theory about being two places at the same time wrong, so they thought they might be able to get away with it. The Korra'ti would fold to the exact coordinates it had left, with a Veritech wing and a full complement of Zentraedi aboard.

"Scott handed the reins of Skull back over to Rick, and reformed Highlander Squad. Volunteers were taken from the other squadrons on Tyrol, to boost Highlander to squadron status. Even a couple of former Ghost Riders, who had refused to follow Edwards to Optera, joined our group to have a chance to erase the stigma of their former squadron. Also, 300 Destroid pilots joined us, not with their bulky mecha but with 3000 cyclones which Lang had finally managed to duplicate and mass-produce. The cyclones were to be for the Southern Cross, and the Destroiders were to be instructors in the use of the cyclones. Also bright along were prototype 'Shadow devices', based on the Korra'ti's own systems. Those would prove to be our most important cargo."

"Scott and I moved into the quarters recently vacated by Rem and Janice, the day after Roy Hunter was born. The next day, with uncertainty ahead and dear friends behind, we left for Earth.

**End, Book Two**

**An explanation of the Asterisks on the dates:**

To get the real dates for the Sentinels mission, add 3 years and 315 days to the listed dates.

Part: Apparent: Real

Part 5: Day of arrival 12/12/2021 10/23/2025

Part 5 & 6: Sentinels arrival 12/31/2021 11/11/2025

Part 6: Battle of Karbarra 2/15-17/2022 12/27-29/2025

Part 6: The Praxis Massacre 10/08/2022 08/28/2026

Part 7: Ark Angel departure 03/12/2023 01/21/2027

Part 7: Arrival at Garuda 04/16/2023 02/25/2027

Part 7: Arrival at Haydon IV 05/27/2023 04/07/2027

Part 8: Exposure of Edwards 09/08/2023 07/20/2027

Part 8: First Battle of Optera 11/19/2023 09/30/2027

Part 8: Second Battle of Optera 05/06/2024 03/17/2028

Part 8: Return from Optera (10/20/2024) 08/31/2028

Part 8: Vulcan Division Launch 01/04/2029


	9. Book Two Side Story: For Inspiration

**Robotech: The Freeman Chronicles**

**Book Two Side Story**

**By Stan Bundy**

**"...For Inspiration..."**

"Come on!" Dana called up the banister to her foster sister; "I'm waiting..."

"Do we REALLY have to go to the Galleria?" Noel moaned, trying to her nearly waist-length hair under control. "We could just as easily play video games here."

"As if. There's more to the arcade than the games, sis."

"You mean, like the noise, the boys, or the fact we'll end up blowing our week's allowance in video games that were old when our fathers were still learning how to tie their shoes? That is, _IF_ they were even born yet?"

"What's wrong with a little classic gaming? Or boy watching?"

"Taking both too seriously. Need I remind you that Uncle Rolf's still taking the repairs for that Q-Bert machine out of your allowance?"

"It was only a broken joystick-"

"Yeah - you broke it straight off the cabinet, along with the facing. All because a cute guy beat you, fair and square."

"It was not fair - the joystick was malfunctioning."

"It was working just as well for you as it was for him. 'Not fair' was your attempts to ruin his game by groping him when he started to get a big lead."

"All's fair in love and war - especially when you can combine the two."

"And, you get this from what - you're parents' first date?" Noel finally stepped out of the upstairs bathroom, having braided her hair into a long tail, complete with a couple of pins and an end ring. "I hate to break it to you, but I've heard your dad was a game geek that scared most women off with his geekdom, before your mother tried to kill him."

"Vicious lies from people jealous that he landed a babe like Mom."

Noel chose to leave it at that, not wanting to point out that it was Bowie's aunt Claudia whom she was quoting. Claudia had an informal interview recorded in 2013 that never aired, but that Bowie's parents had left behind with him when they went with the SDF-3 - and that the three had watched it dozens of times. She changed the subject back to the mall trip. "What are you going to torture me with this week, other than shopping for clothes we can't afford?"

"Torture?"

"You know... Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Mortal Kombat, Burger-Time, Moon Patrol..."

"Oh, you mean what game are we going to play."

"Play's not the word I'd use."

"Just for that, I'll leave you in suspense until we get there. I'll only tell you that there's no chance of me breaking a joystick on this game, and your quick hand reflexes won't do you any good, either."

"Then, how do you play it?" Noel pictured an electronic version of Twister, in her mind, shuddered, then shook it off.

"You'll see when we get there."

Arriving at the mall, they went to the arcade, only to find it packed with persons watching the new machine. From the list of names on the sign-in sheet, a decent number of the spectators were either waiting their turn, or had already had one on the machine. Dana added their names to the list, which had a posted two hour wait time, and they went shopping to kill time.

Noel never actually managed to see the machine, though what she had heard above the crowd noise intrigued her. The game was apparently music-based, ranging in styles from 1970s Disco to 1990s techno. Furthermore, with everyone's attention seemingly focused on the machine's location, not the projection screen usually used for the "game of the month" spectators, then the draw for such a crowd must be watching the actual playing of the game, not the on-screen doings of the players.

The clincher to just what the game used as a control surface came at the shoe store, where Dana bought both shock-absorbing inserts for her current shoes, as well as a pair of traction-sole dance shoes, that were designed to be light on the feet. Dana apparently felt she needed every possible edge she could manage against Noel. Dana's inferiority complex was self-feeding, in that Noel never actually tried to compete with her, but each challenge led to Dana losing, which in turn led to further challenges, and Dana refused to take no for an answer.

After a light lunch (where, again, Noel noted that Dana went for lighter, but high-energy fare, while encouraging her to pig out), they returned to the arcade, arriving ten minutes before their estimated start time. Now close enough to see the machine, it was nothing like any game Noel had ever seen in her life. Each player had four arrows ro make moves on, based on directions from the screen, and possibly other moves as well, seeing as one player they saw used both sides, in a solo game. The whole contraption looked like it would mass a ton or more.

"What is THAT?"

"That, my fun-challenged friend, is 'Dance Dance Revolution' - one of the greatest games to come out during the Global War."

"That's funny - I thought K.C. & the Sunshine Band were from the Seventies."

"They were - the makers of the game used dance music from over three decades."

"Am I seeing things, or are those coin slots labeled for yuan?"

"Your eyes do not deceive. The previous owner imported the machine from Asia in 2001, from a sale of surplus Neasian materials. It used to be in a Neasian military club, before the base was decommissioned as part of their assimilation into the UN government, after the SDF-1 arrived. Think about it - T.R. Edwards himself might have played this game."

"Somehow, I don't think it was his style. Akuma, Balrog or Vega on a Japanese Street Fighter game, on the other hand..."

"You know, sis - you think too much."

"So, where DID they find this game at?"

"The previous owner's estate sale, in Cincinnati - he'd had it in his living room for over twenty years."

"His living room?"

"He originally bought it to take to sci-fi conventions, but after those became a thing of the past, he used it for exercise - he even had it upgraded every chance he got."

"How did he die?"

"His video collection fell on him."

"You're kidding... Dana Sterling, tell me you're kidding..."

"I'm serious. A guy I know bought the collection - mostly old laserdiscs and videotapes like they had before DVDs came out."

"Creepy."

They watched a couple more players, then it was their turn to try the game. They were allowed to practice for one song, then competed for real. Dana tried her best, racking up the third-best score of the day for a head-to-head match - but it wasn't enough.

Their time slot ended with Noel not having missed a step - in fact, the only time she had less than a "Perfect" was when Dana bumped her, resulting in three steps only rating as "Greats". She started to step down from the machine, but the crowd protested.

"Are you sure you want to wait?"

The answer was a definite affirmative, and she returned to the pad, where the owner was waiting.

"Well, what do you have for me to do?"

"Something special," the arcade owner smiled. "This is a pretty unique machine. Around the time the Zentraedi arrived, the owner came into a large amount of money, and had some custom mods done. Besides the normal non-stop modes each version had, he had a programmer develop marathon modes, that would work with whichever version was active."

"Marathon? As in a test of endurance?"

"Pretty much. It works similar to the non-stop modes, but progresses through about half the songs in that version of the setup, instead of a handful."

"That doesn't sound too hard."

"Well, that's not all. The later variations of the original machines had what they referred to as 'Oni' non-stops. You start with a few lives, for lack of a better term. Only 'Perfect' & 'Great' steps count; a 'Good' step or worse costs a life, but great scores on a song could earn an extra life or two. Plus, the steps for Oni versions aren't the same or as easy as in the normal modes. The marathon mode works that way as well, except that it works with even the oldest mixes, and is about a half-hour of music. You get to be the first to try it out, since you've proven to be such a good sight-reader of the dance moves."

"Cool."

Two Second Mix marathons were shown for the "Sugoi Mode", as the custom software was titled. The mode itself had a one-horned version of a Urusei Yatsura female Oni as its mascot, apparently named "Sugoi", though whether the mode was named for her, or vice versa wasn't clear. The marathons were titled "Hard" & "Soft", the former being mostly the male-lead songs, driving instrumentals, etc. Noel chose "Soft", which was primarily the female-lead pop tunes, with some of the disco-derived music (in fact, several of the latter were common to both marathons).

A list of rules popped up - what the arcade owner stated, except that the initial 3 lives could only be added to by getting a run of 300 steps in a row, and each additional 300 in a row on top of that, if the player keeps that run going. The Sugoi mascot walked onto the screen, and asked "Do you really want to do this?" Noel selected "Yes", and stepped back to begin the contest.

The first part of the marathon was a more difficult version of the -centered non-stop from an early version of the machine. Unlike the competition with Dana, though, something seemed to take hold of her, as she slipped into a perfect groove. If the bystanders had paid attention to her face they'd have been more astonished, as by the time the first chorus neared, Noel's eyes were closed. While her body was racking up a perfect score, following a pattern she couldn't even see, her mind was lost elsewhere, a reverie conjured by the music.

_I've been searching in the woods_

_And high upon the hills_

_Just to find, to find my samurai_

_Someone who won't regret_

_To keep me in his net_

_Yes I need, I need my samurai_

She saw an older version of herself on a forested knoll, one of the oddly formed hills in the restricted zone made from the wreckage of New Macross City. She was in the arms of an ATAC officer, herself in ATAC enlisted armor. They kissed, and though she could feel the kiss (despite seeing it in a weird third-person angle), she could not see his face.

_Ay, Ay, Ay, I'm your little butterfly_

_Green, black and blue, make the colours in the sky_

_Ay, Ay, Ay, I'm your little butterfly_

_Green, black and blue, make the colours in the sky_

One scene faded to another, and she saw herself in a strange suit of armor she'd only seen fleeting glimpses of in her childhood, worn by her Aunt Marie. She was fighting red, dome-headed mecha half the size of a Zentraedi, covering the route of Dana and another, a lavender-haired man, who had their own battle, and seemed not to know of her presence, as they were too intent on their own objective.

_Ay, iyaiyai,_

_Ay, iyaiyai_

_A-a-a iyaiyai_

_Where's my samurai?_

Songs transitioned, and with each switch came changes in the content of her visions. Some, like "Dub-I-Dub", had little of obvious interest, not even showing people she knew (or at least, hadn't met yet), while others ha explicit visions - the passionate sex she saw and partially felt during "Boys" almost caused her to falter on the dance pad, despite the seeming isolation of that inner state from her outer one.

Dana, more than anyone else, knew that SOMETHING funny was going on - but what exactly that "something" was, she was at a loss to explain. The surreal scene was really eating at her as the reworked "Kung Fu Fighting" rolled around, and Noel went into a mid-level arms-only kata, still without missing a step. It was a kata that Noel had never actually been trained in, or even shown, as far as Dana could tell, as Dana had learned it herself months after Noel and Bowie had left training to give more time to their musical education. In fact, she was doing it more smoothly, and with less effort that it took Dana to do it rather badly in class - and she had never practiced it at home, or anywhere else Noel could have seen her.

As the cycle of music came to its finale, the visions returned to the subject matter of the earliest ones, providing more details in the last song...

_I need to come to the hill on my own_

_My nights of only dreaming of the future to come..._

Visions of many people flooded past her; from past, present and possible future. Dana; Bowie; a geek wearing goggles, all in uniform. Her family, gone these past four years. The handsome, lavender-haired young man from the earlier vision, wearing an alien body sleeve, and a harrowed, haunted expression in his eyes.

_The feel of the wind makes me understand_

_That I will have to face the problems to overcome_...

Triplet singers, different only in their hair & eye color. Alien flowers. A massive alien ship exploding in a hurricane of flower petals, as if the climax of some surrealist art film. A phoenix-like energy arising from fields of flowers.

_Cause you know we've been in a maze of love_

_And we are losing control to get away_

_When I am walking on the hill in this town_

_Like in the childhood that seems like yesterday_

Again, the Macross ruins filled her mind, a secret garden of the recurring flowers hidden in their bowels, accessible only through a maze of crumbling tunnels, carved by unknown hands -or by paws?

_If you were here with me_

_You could feel the way I do now_

_If you were here with me_

_You could see what I am looking for now..._

As the song finished up, her mind began to clear, and she could sense that the man she had envisioned herself with was near, but not his location. The song had an extended instrumental end, drawn from a remix CD version. Noel quickly caught where she was in the pattern, and would finish it with her own abilities.

Several of the DJ voiceover lines from that from that version were left in the cleaned up instrumental end; after all, they fit with the fact that the person had done the near impossible, their placement seconds away from the completion of the marathon...

"Yes! You are the king of the world! Your dance will save us all; you know it, don't you?"

Noel finished the song by going into splits, hitting the last two, simultaneous, steps with her hands.

"Perfect - Too Perfect!" The game exclaimed, the crowd going wild in response to watching this young girl pull off the impossible.

By this point, what had happened in her trance was a fading memory, though bits and pieces would return slowly, in her dreams. For now, she was just an ordinarily shy girl going on thirteen, reveling in the admiration & attention she had earned.

The final roar of the crown was loud enough to startle people even as far away as the food court, catching the attention of many there.

"What the hell was that?" one diner asked.

"The arcade has a new machine - if you can call something that was almost a decade old when I was born, 'new'," another teen replied, one of the earlier gamers. "It's a dancing pattern game."

"I almost bought that machine, myself," a third added. Unlike the other two, he was a young prodigy. While only a year older than them, he was a post-graduate college student compared to their being high-school seniors.

"Really?" The second teen asked, sitting down next to the third to get the full story from his friend

"Yeah - but I could only free up enough money from my trust fund to buy either it, or the video collection from the estate sale."

"Tough call."

"I figured I'd get more use from the videos. Besides, where would I have put the thing? As it is, I have to keep most of the video collection in storage lockers, instead of my tiny apartment. Any idea who the cheering is for?"

"When I left, a middile-school girl was demolishing the high score, and they decided to stick her up for an endurance run," the second teen replied. "She must have just finished."

"I wish I could have seen that. As it is, I have to get back to campus for a lab."

"On a Saturday Afternoon? You study too hard..."

"I'd have to double my current class load before I'd even have to sweat, Dennis. You, on the other hand, need to study harder, if you plan on taking the TASC Flight School exam next year. I'm still part of the tutor pool, so you can request me if you need help." The young student stood up, and dumped his garbage into the nearby can.

"I'll keep that in mind. See you later, Alex."

_Live out your fantasy here with me_

_Just let the music set you free..._

- Madonna, "Get into the Groove"

_It's the music that we choose..._

- Gorillaz, "19/2000"


	10. Book Three, Part Nine

**Robotech: The Freeman Chronicles**

**Book Three: The Promise**

**By: Stanley Bundy**

I dedicate this book of R:TFC to the following:

The Alan Parsons Project, (who at one time had all 4 parts and the book named for their music), Queen, Tina Turner and all the other musicians of my youth;

All my choir teachers, through the years, who had the courage to teach pop, rock and show tunes in an area where some people still preach that all pop music is the work of Satan (now if I could figure out why the bastards in the music company gave the sopranos the lead in "Fun, Fun, Fun" and "California Girls"...)

Once again, Miles Yount, this time as the player of Alex, and Shannon Jones, as the comic relief in the form of Tensen;

The cast and creators of _**Xanadu**_, who subliminally manipulated me into making Karen Freeman what she is ("...and do you believe me now, Sonny?"). I didn't catch all the weird connections until a friend pointed them out to me while watching the movie, after reading my handwritten rough drafts;

Don Bluth, Lynn Ahrens, Donna Lewis and Richard Marx: I originally wrote this book of my tale in 1989-90, but it wasn't until October 1997 that I started typing it in, and mid-December that I finished Part Nine. In the middle of this, the song "At the Beginning" from _**Anastasia**_ came along and blew me away, as it could just as easily have been Alex and Noel's love theme. The other two major songs just as easily could have been part of this story as well, but I'm not going to go THAT far in stealing music.

All the other musicians whom I've "borrowed" lyrics from for my epigraphs;

and all the fans that have been bugging me to finish typing the story in. Can't a guy work on his gaming files for a while? =)~.

_**When you need a friend,**_

_**Don't look to a stranger;**_

_**You know in the end**_

_**I'll always be there.**_

_**And when you're in doubt,**_

_**And when you're in danger;**_

_**Take a look all around**_

_**And I'll be there.**_

_**I'm sorry, but I'm just trying to think of the right words to say**_

_**(I promise you)**_

_**I know they don't sound the way I planned them to be**_

_**(I promise you)**_

_**But, if you wait around awhile I'll make you fall for me**_

_**I Promise you, I Promise you, I will...**_

- When In Rome, "The Promise"

**Part Nine: Hopes and Dreams**

**Chapter One:**

"On a countdown to zero,

take a ride on the nightmare machine;

There ain't gonna be heroes,

There ain't gonna be anything.

Oh, Here it comes, here comes the night

Here it comes, hell in the night

Here it comes, here comes the night..."

- Def Leppard, Gods of War; from the album Hysteria

**2 January, 2029**, 1:54 AM

Recreation Room, 15th Alpha Tactical Armored Company Barracks

Second Lieutenant Alexander Hamilton Tyler, M.D., stood in the dark, gazing out into the night through the panoramic window of the barracks lounge. In the faint peacetime lights of the access road and parking facilities, he could see the surrounding terrain's sharp outlines. It would be many years before this desert would again resemble the Montana where he was born in 2009.

2009: The year the Zentraedi found Earth, though the civilian populace was kept blissfully unaware of this for over a year, until Khyron's mad attack on the SDF-1 over the suburbs of Toronto. How could it be just 20 years ago that he was born into a world that no longer existed? He and his parents survived the Holocaust of 2011, only for him to be orphaned when his home got in the way of the last survivors of Khyron's mecha forces as they fled ruined New Macross, where Khyron died, taking much of the RDF command with him.

Living with his godfather, Hikaru, he began home-schooling at an early age, watching his parents' old science fiction videos and his godfather's anime in breaks between studying. By 8, he was taking classes meant for early high school, and began study at the Gloval Memorial School for Gifted Youngsters. Surrounded by others of similar potential, he finished high school at 12, and continued on in the school's university branch until he had to transfer, in order to go to graduate school. Along the way, he joined the Southern Cross, to fund his education, as Hikaru had died in 2026. Now, he found himself in temporary charge of a combat unit, of all things!

He still watched the old videos, now and then. Kirk & Spock, Apollo & Starbuck, Londo & G'Kar, Donovan, Julie and his namesake, Ham Tyler; he knew them all by heart. But his favorites to watch were classic anime, such as the Gundam, Orguss, Dirty Pair and Yamato series, all in the original Japanese that he had been taught by Hikaru, who had come to the US prior to the Global War. How the animators and scriptwriters of the anime must be laughing at us from their graves, he thought. So many of their visions had come to pass... A devastated Earth, seemingly abandoned by its best, civilian and military despots in control of what remained. How they must laugh.

Suddenly, his reverie was interrupted by someone tapping on his shoulder. He turned to find one of the corporals under his command.

"Alex, you having another rough night?"

"Yeah, Louie. I don't think I'm cut out for command. I'll be glad when the new XO gets here, tomorrow night. You know as well as I do that my rank's due to my M.D., not my leadership skills. Dammit, why can't Sean keep his hormones under control? As it is, I'll STILL probably end up as XO due to his screwups, only under someone with no time in grade. I doubt he'll remain an officer much longer, if he isn't discharged outright."

"How did you end up in a combat unit, anyway? Someone with your skill and degree should be in research; at worst, practicing at a base hospital."

"My specialty was xeno-medicine, including the Zentraedi, but I wasn't even considered for a research position, while several of my classmates were chosen, some of whom were known to falsify data! Every one chosen held grudges against the Zentraedi, and went into the specialty for the express purpose of trying to find biological weaknesses in Zentraedi. I'm almost convinced that Research wants to scrap the old RDF ban on biological weapons, and it scares me. What about you, Louie? In my time here, I've seen you pull things with our equipment and your own little toys that were supposed to be impossible. Why aren't you working in mecha R&D?"

"My choice was simple, Alex. I didn't feel that I should use my ideas to build weapons, or be told what to make, either. I noticed the same tendencies you did, in Research, and figured that I'd be much better off fighting aliens individually, than trying to commit mass murder against them. If the Zentraedi are human, and were created from their Masters' genetic material, doesn't logic indicate that the Masters are human as well?"

" I know what you mean. But the time that the SDF-3 has been gone seems to indicate something went wrong. We may have to fight the Zentraedi, or even their Masters, here. But I don't want to do it as a unit commander; I'm a doctor, dammit! I'm supposed to help people live, not order them to kill, and be killed!"

"Speaking of orders, have you heard anything yet about our new XO?"

"Nothing official, but I have a few ideas on who it might be."

"Could it be Sterling? That would explain why you're not getting transfer papers to a hospital unit. Her foster father would want a specialist near her, in case she got sick or injured."

"Maybe, but I hope not. I dated her once - ONCE. She tried to rape me -"

"You've got to be kidding."

"Nope. If Emerson hadn't come to my rescue, I don't want to think about what might have happened. That was a couple years ago, and I was still a virgin then. I wasn't quite ready to lose it in that manner, on a first date! She's a nice enough person to pal around with, once you get to know her socially, but heaven forbid she asks you out. Her views toward relationships are akin to Zentraedi views on combat."

"Have you met her sister, Noel?"

"Sister?"

"You haven't then. Noel Freeman was adopted by a couple members of Skull Squadron; Shannon Freeman, and his Zentraedi wife, Kayra. Noel was left with Emerson, just like Dana and Bowie Grant were."

"Freeman... Wasn't he the guy who killed the traitor, Edwards?"

"No, that was Shannon's brother, Scott. Come to think of it, Scott was married to a cousin of Max Sterling, so the families must have been really close."

"Interesting; I wonder why Dana never mentioned her."

"Could it be that Noel is shy, quiet, extremely intelligent, very beautiful, and supposedly the best shot in the Southern Cross Robotech Academy, including the instructors?"

"How do you know her?"

" I met her once, at the jazz bar in town that Cadet Grant sometimes sneaks into to play piano. When he goes, Noel goes to listen, sometimes sing, while Dana tags along to keep them out of trouble."

"Just how good a shot is she?"

"I heard that, in training two weeks ago, she bullseye'd the target with all 30 shots from an old M-16 assault rifle, from 500 meters, in less than a minute."

"Impressive, but not impossible."

"But she was firing it without a scope, and all 30 shots hit the same 3 centimeter area."

"You've got to be joking."

"I'm not. The range supervisor thought she must have missed the target several times, so he pulled her target. When he removed the cover sheet, all 30 slugs fell to the ground, in a fused clump. He immediately put in for ALL of his built up leave time."

"Do you blame him?" Alex looked Louie square in the eyes; for once, Louie was without his trademark goggles. "Didn't think so. Louie, do you think things will ever be normal, again? You know, the way the older generations describe the time before the Zentraedi. I sometimes find myself wishing for the days when alien invasion was something you watched on TV or at the movies as entertainment, and you had to travel through miles of woods and grasslands to get to a desert, instead of vice-versa."

"We can't look back, Alex. All one can do is get on with what life has given us. Go back to bed, and get some sleep. Remember, you have to represent us at the graduation ceremonies tomorrow."

"If I have to take Sean's place in one more ceremony, I'll solve all our problems by neutering him! But, you're right as always, Louie. I'll see you in 5 hours, at breakfast, and you can tell me more about Noel Freeman. You've got my curiosity piqued."

**Chapter Two:**

"The cycle repeated as explosions broke in the sky

All that I needed was the one thing I couldn't find

And you were there at the turn, waiting to let me know..."

-Linkin Park, "Burn it Down"

**2 January, 2029**, 2 PM

The graduation ceremony was a media circus, for several reasons. First was the scheduling, so that the ceremony coincided with the 15th anniversary of the destruction of the SDF-1 and New Macross. Second was the fact that this was the first wholly Southern Cross graduating class from the former RDF Robotech Academy. Last was the change of venues, from the spacious auditorium on the Academy grounds, to the UEG continental parliament building, a half-kilometer away, in order to include ceremonies involving the first reason.

Anatole Leonard, the pompous political general who led the Southern Cross, gave the graduation address. While he didn't directly play up the presence of Bowie Grant (nephew of the SDF-1 martyr Claudia) in the graduating class, he did harp long on those events, making an accidental spectacle of himself when he listed off the SDF-1 bridge crew victims of Khyron, and forgot to list one of the bridge bunnies.

The unit assignments were given out inside the diplomas, but weren't made available to the audience until after the ceremony. As a result, they were long gone by the time that Alex found out that Dana was, in fact, heading for the 15th, along with Bowie and Noel. Alex had been shocked when he finally got to see the latter. If anything, she was even more beautiful than Louie had described. No wonder Dana kept her dates from meeting Noel, he thought.

He made his way through the seething crowd of departing relatives, to the retro-designed jeep that had been issued for the use of the 15th. He threaded it through the parking lot, using his military credentials to get access to one of the cross-streets that had been closed off for security and crowd control. He cruised down it to the academy, where he again used his position to get a space reserved for visiting officers (which he was, technically). He then began his search for the three graduates.

He checked the women's dorm first, to find out that Dana and Noel had checked out before graduation, and had their bags moved to Bowie's room. Armed with that knowledge, he headed there. As he approached, he could hear the sounds of a guitar coming from the room, accompanied by a beautiful female voice - definitely not Dana's - singing the old ballad "Scarborough Fair". He waited for the song to finish, then knocked on the door.

"Come in," Bowie called out.

Alex stepped into the room, to find Bowie sitting on a beat-up bar stool, guitar in hand. Dana was lying on Bowie's bed, legs overhanging the foot, and her feet on the ground. Noel... Noel was leaning on the window sill, sipping spring water from a squeeze bottle. The way the sunlight played off her hair and highlighted her form made Alex hesitate a second in the doorway. He quickly composed himself.

"Hi, Dana; it's been a while."

"'Hi' yourself, Alex. Did I ever get around to telling you that you had a cute butt?"

"Yes, when you tried to molest me. Let's cut to the chase; I'm here on official business."

"Really?" Dana asked coyly. "What kind?"

"I'm here to welcome you to my squadron."

"Your squadron?" Bowie questioned. "I thought Sean Phillips commanded the 15th?"

"He does;" Alex replied, "at least when he's not in the place with the vertical blinds." Dana chuckled at the reference, being more familiar with the scuttlebutt surrounding Phillips' exploits.

"Such as now?" Dana asked, already knowing the answer.

"Yeah, and when he's indisposed, I'm stuck with his job - at least until you report for duty, Dana. By the way, you've not introduced me to the other lovely lady in the room, and I don't mean you, Private Grant."

Noel recognized the cue, and responded. "Private Noel Freeman. And you?"

"Second Lieutenant Alexander Hamilton Tyler; but you can call me Alex. Don't bother with my rank when we're not around the brass; it came with my medical degree."

"What did I tell you, sis?" Dana teased. "I always said I'd introduce you to a doctor sometime."

"Dana..." both Alex and Noel responded, Noel blushing. Alex tried to change the subject.

"Noel, I heard you singing as I came up to the room. You have an incredible voice."

"Thank you. Are you a musician?"

"I play the sax a little; both tenor and alto. How long have you been singing?"

"My 'Aunt Karen' originally worked with me, along with my mother, starting when I was six. Actually, Karen wasn't my aunt, but my Aunt Marie's best friend; they babysat us often, when either or both sets of parents had flight duty. Both Karen and Mom were professional singers, though Mom was blacklisted during the Malcontent wars, because of her being a Zentraedi. Karen, on the other hand, recorded two albums before leaving with the REF, including several songs with Minmei and Janice Em."

"Karen... Karen Ellison?"

"Yes, that was her."

"I've been looking for copies of her albums for years."

"I can make you copies, if you'd like. But, after Karen and my family left, Rolf arranged for Bowie and me to study with some of Minmei's voice and piano teachers. I think we broke their hearts when we chose to go into the military with Dana."

"How well do you remember those days, before the REF left?"

"Quite well, actually; I have an eidetic memory - what used to be called a 'photographic memory'. Speaking of photos, I think I have a photo of us with Karen and Marie in my travel bag. It was taken Christmas, at my sixth birthday party. Dana?"

"I'll get it." Dana began rummaging through Noel's gear, finally pulling out a small photo album. "Here you go; if the surroundings seem a little odd, it's because the photo was taken at the bottom of the barrel of the old Brasilia Grand Cannon. Parts of it were converted as a habitat, and we used to live there. I remember Mom and Dad joking that they had to help Santa deliver our presents, as we were at the bottom of the world's biggest chimney."

Alex looked at the time-worn photo, of the two little girls posing with their babysitters. Dana was in Karen's lap, Noel in Marie's. The resemblance caught Alex off-guard. "Dana, have you and Noel ever noticed how much you look like them?"

"I never really noticed before, but now that you mention it... But that's not too strange. After all, Noel's aunt was my father's cousin, so there's bound to be a family resemblance. And Noel's always tried to look like either Karen or Kayra."

"Even then, to the point of hair color?"

"Don't tell anyone, but Mom and Dad used to have my hair dyed some sort of aqua color, half way between her natural hair, and his dye job," Dana commented, diverting Alex. "I'm just glad they let me go natural before I started kindergarten-"

Dana's recollections were cut off by every alert siren in Monument going off, simultaneously, followed a second later by Alex's duty pager.

"What the hell? Alex?" Dana looked to him for an explanation.

"Let's see... Priority message coming in... The authentication code is correct for today; the rest - Oh, God..." Alex almost dropped the pager, from shock.

"Alex?" Bowie asked, jumping over to his side to steady him.

"The code is 'zero_zero_alpha'."

"Which is?" Noel asked nervously, dreading the answer, as the sirens continued to wail behind her.

Alex tried to explain it slowly, to convince himself that it was really happening, if anything else. "The first number is the scope. A nine is unit-level, on up to a one for a planetary alert; a zero is a solar-system wide alert, and hasn't been used for real since the system was established. The second number is the priority rating. A high number is a casual warning, a middle number something to be done today, a one being something to be done immediately; a zero means everyone who isn't bedridden or dead reports to duty station even faster. The last digit is a number, for drills and low priority messages; letters are reserved for special cases, such as terrorist attacks, disasters, etc. We've got to get back to the ATAC barracks."

"What's the code mean?"

"The worst possible code, alpha, is an alien attack. As a zero_zero message, it means either an invasion, or a Dolza-style bombardment is imminent."

"Zentraedi?" Noel asked, warily looking out the windows.

"Probably not. Code zebra is specifically Zentraedi. Alpha means that the aliens are totally unknown, based on the data the Zentraedi gave us."

Suddenly, someone pounded on the door, causing them all to jump from nervous reflex.

"Alex, are you in there?"

"Louie? What are you doing here?"

Louie stepped in. "I guess you've gotten the notice, huh?"

"How long have you known?"

"About an hour ago, several large vessels, bigger than Zentraedi ships, were picked up approaching the Moon. I left to come get you then, keeping track of the broadcasts with my special equipment." He touched his goggle frames, that Alex knew concealed a receiver that picked up military channels, not to mention signals from the descrambler set that Louie had as a relay unit in his quarters. "While I was looking for you here, Moon Base and the Way Station Liberty between Earth and Mars were both attacked, and went off the air from jamming, if not worse. That's when the alert sirens finally went off. I guess someone managed to keep a cool head longer than we thought he could."

"Or else Leonard was having a late lunch after the ceremony, and Emerson was in charge. Take your pick, but I'd bet on the latter. Well, you're here now. Make yourself useful, and grab their gear."

"What about the rest of my things?" Bowie asked. "I was only half-packed."

"Leave it; you can come back later, if the aliens give us a chance. I don't think they'll throw out the belongings of a General's godson, without asking first."

"Colonel Fredericks? What are you doing here?" Alex asked, surprised to see one of the top officers in the GMP waiting for them as they entered the barracks. They had drove at breakneck speed back to base, to the point where the jeep would probably need transmission work before it would be usable again.

"I'm here to make sure your unit is responding correctly to the alert, Lieutenant. Especially since your commander had gotten himself locked up for contempt of court in his military inquiry, right before the alert sounded. I see you're just now returning from the graduation ceremony."

"Yes, sir. I was picking up Lieutenant Sterling, and privates Grant and Freeman when the alert sounded, and felt it would be best to bring them directly in, since their graduation leave would most likely be canceled anyway."

"You made the correct decision. Now, are you ready to assume command of the 15th, until we have the ability to reconvene Phillip's inquiry?"

"No, sir, I am not." Alex's reply caught Fredericks off-guard.

"And why is that?"

"Colonel, I'm not a line officer; I received my commission as a result of my medical degree. On the other hand, Lieutenant Sterling is a line officer, Academy-trained, and has a better knowledge of tactical situations. Furthermore, I was supposed to relinquish my position as Lieutenant Phillips' executive officer to her upon her arrival here, but the alert caused us to arrive earlier than planned."

"Do you agree to this, Lieutenant Sterling?"

Dana suddenly felt like someone had set a Destroid on her shoulders. "Yes, sir," she replied, though not completely thrilled with responsibility this soon.

"Then, God help us, Lieutenant Sterling is now in temporary command of the 15th ATAC, until such time as Lieutenant Phillips is indicted, or cleared to return to active duty."

"The 15th won't let you down, sir," Dana responded, trying to be confident.

"We'll see, Lieutenant. We'll see."

**Chapter Three:**

"The second generation of Robotech Warriors differed from their forefathers, in that they had spent their entire lives preparing for war, instead of having it thrust upon them like the people of Macross. Some were more prepared than others, and two were more prepared than they had ever imagined."

- from Rand's The History of Earth 1995-2035

**From ****The Collected Journals of Alex Tyler** (annotated autobiographical version)

"The next four months were spent preparing for a follow-up attack that never came. Dana settled into her position as "temporary" commander of the 15th, much to the chagrin of many a member of the unit, as she had several things going against her at this point. She was a teenager; only Bowie and Noel were younger than she was. She was a woman, in charge of a unit previously known for its, well, less savory reputation. She was half-Zentraedi, at a time when we didn't know one way or the other if the aliens overhead had any connection to the Zentraedi. Lastly, there was that "temporary" tag she had. Until something was done about Sean, to clear up the command once and for all, she was hard-pressed to get the clowns she had been given under control.

"It was during this time that I began getting to know Noel better. Louie had been right on target, in some aspects. Noel and I shared many interests, especially in musical areas, and I often acted as chaperone, so to speak, in taking Bowie and Noel to places that were supposed to be off-limits, in order for all three of us to perform. The three of us all were more the type that would rather perform, than fight; which made the incident in May, just prior to the resumption of hostilities, rather ironic. Dana took us on a 'joyride' to the barracks of Marie Crystal's 15th TASC unit, and inter-unit rivalry erupted into a full brawl - where the three of us did more damage to the flyboys than the rowdy members of the squadron.

"Bowie, of all people, threw the first punch, and that's when everyone (but Dana and me) joined in, Dana screaming repeatedly (and half-heartedly) for the fighting to stop. I tried to go to Marie Crystal's rescue, figuring that, with her help, Dana and I could stop the fight. She kept inadvertently getting involved in others' fights, so when I approached her, she assumed I was the next attacker, and started tearing into me. I did my best to try to convince her I didn't want to fight, but all I got out of it was giving as good as I got, and we beat each other fairly black and blue. Noel was showing her true fighting form, having disabled three of the TASC pilots, two by misdirecting them into each other, and never was touched offensively the entire fight. In fact, she was looking for more opponents when we heard the approaching sirens of the MPs.

"We split up, and by some miracle well all made it back to barracks - except Dana. She got pulled in by her old classmate, Nova Satori, the next morning, leaving me in command again, as Sean was finally going to face his court martial that week. Ten days later, the enemy made their move on Earth, and I was dreading actually becoming a combat leader. Luckily, the rumors that she'd be sprung in case of enemy activity proved true, and she rolled into camp, just as I was about to lead the troops in her stead."

"Dana? Thank God you're here!" Alex was never more glad to see her walk through the ready room door, as he'd been about to take the unit out into real combat for the first time.

"Don't thank God, thank Fredericks. I think he wants to see me screw up, so he let me out to come back and lead you guys. So, let's prove him wrong. Let's move, 15th!"

The squadron scrambled to the powered ladder that went to the mecha bay, and was soon on the way toward the battle zone, where Battloid units were being totally routed by the faster alien mecha.

Initially, they used the howitzer mode of the Hovertanks against the fast-moving mecha; but while it did prove successful in getting one-hit kills on the aliens, it also made the Earth mecha more vulnerable, and several of the 15th paid the price. Dana ordered the 15th to go to Battloid mode, and to concentrate on the aliens' hover platforms, to limit their mobility. However, one of the enemy Bioroids, the only red one, seemed to not be really hampered by the loss of its transportation. While Alex and Noel managed a successful crossfire that took out three Bioroids, Dana soon found herself in a very evenly matched battle with the red; a battle that ended up with her running into Alex & Noel's field of fire, and forcing to drop their guard to avoid hitting her, resulting in all three being surrounded.

"Angie! Where are you? We're pinned down and need some help breaking it!"

"I see you Alex! I'm about a hundred meters away, at your seven. Hang on, and I'll cause a diversion!"

Angie got his Battloid into a run, then did a thruster-assisted leap to directly behind a blue Bioroid. He activated his outside speakers and yelled at the enemy. "Hey, Ugly! Wanna dance?" As the Bioroid spun around, Angie practically put the EU-11 barrel up to the Bioroid's head, and pulled the trigger, dropping it instantly. The other two blues pinning the others down turned toward him, giving Alex and Dana shots that dropped them, as the red jumped to safety.

At this point, one of the alien drop ships arrived, distracting almost everyone - but Louie. He transformed back to howitzer mode, and tried to take a pot shot at the red Bioroid. The shot missed, but hit the transport. At that instant, all the surviving Bioroids abandoned combat, and fled back to the transport; Louie's accidental hit had evidently did more damage than actually showed. The transport took back off for its mothership, leaving a tired and confused 15th ATAC to pick up the pieces.

"Angie, what in HELL did you think you were doing?" Alex snapped at the burly sergeant.

"It worked, didn't it?"

They made a quick scan of the battlefield, but found no survivors from the destroyed mecha on either side. It appeared that, at least in this battle, you either survived unscathed or died, and there were almost equal numbers of each, counting the dead Battloid pilots they had been sent to reinforce, but were gone when they got there. The survivors then transformed their mecha back to transport mode, and headed back in to base, for a well-deserved cold beer, and some time to reflect on the events of the day.

They arrived home to find Nova waiting for them, Sean in tow. The court martial, despite Sean's confidence, had found him guilty, but sent him back to his unit anyway - as an E-2. As a result, Dana was now the permanent CO.

"What did I tell you, Louie? Less than 6 months, and I'm already XO again," Alex moaned.

"It could have been worse, Alex. She could have gotten demoted for her offenses, too."

"Don't remind me..."

**Chapter Four:**

"No battle plan survives contact with the enemy."

- One of "Murphy's Laws of Combat" (Anonymous)

**3 July, 2029**

**From ****The Collected Journals of Alex Tyler**:

"Today was one big FUBAR. It's a miracle we survived.

"It started off with a near-suicidal frontal attack on one of the enemy ships in low orbit, using most of Monument Sector's trans-orbital fighter squadrons. The first wave was made up Spectres, flying at their altitude ceiling, and Redhawk Veritechs. The Spectres didn't belong there; at that altitude, they handled worse than a cargo plane on landing approach. I should know, having logged about 20 hours a week in simulator time in my days at the then-combined RDF/SC academy, trying out the sims of every aircraft in the SC inventory. As for the Redhawks, they were okay. But they were few, the VAF-4B being a stop-gap measure brought about by the still-unexplained cancellation of the Centurion & Privateer projects, and the delays in the AJACS. Besides, the VAF-4 was a derivative of the VAFX-2 Veritas test-bed project that was the ancestor of the REF's VAF-5 Alpha and VVF-1 Vindicator, and it showed its age. Plus, it had never really outgrew its undeserved reputation as a widowmaker, that resulted from the Petrey/Cyberpirate incident. One of these days, I'm going to have to ask Dana about the part she played in the exposing of that mess.

"As expected (by me, at least), the fight was short, bloody, and entirely in favor of the visiting team. As the debris from the first wave began raining down on the suburbs of Monument, the Black Lions launched. Unfortunately, it was also about this time that the enemy turned off their AA batteries, and sent out their mecha teams. At least the Lions stood a chance of surviving the encounter; they were the only TASC unit in North America that exclusively used the Logan fighter (barring their duty as test pilots, presumably for the AJACS project, back in December). While others maligned the Logan as a "Flying Rowboat" (indeed, at 6 meters long, it's about the right shape and length), Crystal and her pilots had perfected the use of vectored thrust in flight with the VTOL craft, taking a cue from the pilots of the pre-Global War British Harrier pilots. This type of piloting, all but ignored by the rest of the SC air forces (who were too dependent on computer control), made the Black Lions unbeatable in last year's war games.

"Back to the battle... While the Black Lions were on their way up, we were stuck guarding an area of absolutely no strategic value whatsoever; probably some UEG senator's dildo factory or something." (Actually, we found out years later that one of the buildings in the office park was one of Zand's "extra-curricular" research facilities. A.T.) "The casualty numbers were starting to come in over the command circuit; we got to listen to it, and the battle, thanks to Louie's penchant for tinkering. Then, the reports came in that the enemy was moving on Fokker Field in a retaliatory strike. The Black Lions were the only unit still cohesive enough to fall back to defensive positions, and we could see from our vantage point, 4 klicks away, that they were getting hammered. Finally, Dana couldn't take it any longer, and ordered us in to assist. Angie squawked about it, and chose to stay behind - until Nova rolled in less than a minute later, and Angie preferred combat to trying to explain Dana's actions to the GMP.

"Whatever rivalry Dana and Marie have , they don't let it interfere with their duty. In fact, they seem to complement each other on the battlefield, in more than one meaning of the word. Maybe it's the synergy of Marie's head for strategy and Dana's gut instinct for the right risks, at just the right time. Our abandonment of our post was proof of this ability of Dana's, as we slid onto the airfield just in time to save Marie from certain death. Of course, our arrival caused the attackers to change their priorities, as we had bested them before. In fact, the damage patterns on the lead, red, mecha identified it as being the same one we had fought before, and it apparently recognized us as easily as we recognized it.

"The battle got real ugly, real quick, and we began splitting into pairs of mechs, in order to prevent a single strafing run from taking out half the unit. Dana & Bowie, Angie & Sean, Louie and Jordan, Noel & me; each pair, back-to-back in Battloid. Of course, the enemy liked playing in teams as well, sending in groups of three from both directions at once. Only Dana wasn't getting the treatment, but she had her own problem, as 'Big Red' decided to make it a battle between unit leaders. Dana was none to happy with this, especially as it kept shrugging off her laser hits. Finally, she went with a tactic it wasn't prepared for, and shot the probable cockpit area of the flying troop carrier that had brought the enemy in. With that, the enemy quickly retreated, leaving the spaceport a mess.

"The fight was over, but we dreaded what we might hear when we got back to barracks, as we'd abandoned our post to go into battle. At least we were able to get Marie to come back with us, to speak in our defense, and to get me to do a check-up so that she wouldn't have to wait hours for one at the med center, from having to wait for all the critical cases to be handled. She got a clean bill of health, but I doubt the 15th will be as lucky with the brass."

**5 July, 2029**

"A lot has happened since the battle. First of all, despite her talking on our behalf, Marie thought Dana would be lucky to get off with just not being punished for her decision. Instead, Dana got a promotion out of the incident. We found out that we were going to be ordered in to assist, but the order wasn't issued until we were engaging the enemy. Dana had managed to anticipate the order, and had we waited for the order to actually reach us, Fokker field and the Lions would have been wiped out. In fact, at the time that the brass heard we had begun engaging the enemy, they were actually lamenting the fact that they had waited so long to order us in, and were sure we couldn't act on the orders in time to save the base. Unlike Marie, I'm thrilled that Dana's getting the promotion, as it makes it that much more difficult for Dana to get busted back down to where I'd be expected to take command again.

"Dana showed up at her promotion ceremony with all the tact of a Black Panther at a Klan rally, throwing puns and sight gags in all directions. I half-expected the brass to put the promotion back into his pocket, and turn her over to Col. Fredericks (who was present) for psych evaluation. But, they went ahead and gave it to her (thank God), even if they had to bite their tongues to keep from commenting about how Dana's VHT sprouted rabbit ears to go along with her 'rabbitechnology' puns. But then, I'm just glad that we stopped using the squadron nickname "Playboys" when Dana was made our CO, and that no one tried to make Dana or Noel wear a 'bunny' suit at the party, like what happened with females present at Sean's last party as CO (then again, that party was one of the incidents cited in his court martial). The party lasted till 0400, and it was a bunch of unhappy, hung-over ATACs that had to go out on patrol at 1000. I'm still trying to catch up on my sleep, and I left the party at 0100!"

**13 August, 2029**

"I wish Dana had spoken to me before volunteering us for the shuttle mission. Mom was born the day that Challenger blew up, and my grandparents named her for the teacher on board. Now, Dana wants me to go up on a COMMUNICATIONS mission in a shuttle - the Challenger IV. Isn't it bad enough that the Challengers II & III ALSO blew up, albeit at the hands of the anti-unionists and Zentraedi? I don't want to go out like my mother's namesake. If I die in this war, I want to go out with a gun in my hand, not a microphone!"

**Chapter Five:**

"It's so simple, so very simple,

That only a child can do it..."

- Tom Lehrer(20th Century musical satirist) The New Math

**13 August, 2029**

Dana, Alex and Marie Crystal were in Emerson's staff room, along with the mission team for the other shuttle, being briefed on the mission. The general's aides and advisors were giving them their first full briefing of the day on the shuttle mission. While Emerson himself had given the official, short, briefing, he was sitting back now, letting his aides test their briefing skills on subordinates. It was also one of his tools for detecting problems in his own plans, as he could more objectively study it as an observer. The major began his interpretation of the briefing...

"We've known for quite a while that Luna Base survived its sole encounter with the enemy. They were able to send a laser message back to us, listing their status. As you know, though, the large amount of dust and debris still in orbit from Dolza's destruction makes laser communications unreliable, and it took several days of analysis of the repeating laser signal to rebuild it completely. Now, we've received another message, that we weren't expecting - REF Communications Base Liberty out in the asteroid belt.

"The people at Liberty took an ingenious route to contact us. Too far away to try a laser, and with civilian and military subspace channels jammed, they knew, as did Luna, that a direct radio message would also be jammed. Instead, they sent their message to a solar science probe in a polar orbit around the sun, which then relayed it to Earth as part of its data stream. Unfortunately, it took a month before the scientists got far enough into the data to discover the message, and relay it to us. Since the discovery, we've been able to use standard optical telescopes to confirm that the station is indeed functional, and not a trap like Sara. Unfortunately, the probe can't be used for two-way communication.

"However, we've come up with a solution to this, ironically because of Sara base's destruction twenty years ago. When Sara was built, we had not yet been able to duplicate Zentraedi subspace technology. The best we had come up with was a very inefficient FTL system, that had an effective range of only several light-minutes, without relay stations; it's tech that either the Zentraedi's creators never had, or abandoned long ago when they developed communications that use the hyperdimension that are used by fold travel. In order to communicate with Sara, multiple relay satellites were put into orbit, spaced in two orbits roughly one-third and two-thirds the distance between Earth & Mars orbit, every thirty degrees. These stations were mothballed in place when Sara was destroyed, and by the time we recolonized Mars, we had plenty of the Zentraedi communication sets to use instead."

"What's our part in this?" Dana asked.

"That obsolete communications system is disrupted by passage through an atmosphere, even one as thin as the one on Mars. But, we have a couple weather satellites retrofitted with laser transmitters and the special broadcast equipment that we launched last week, that the aliens haven't bothered with because their sensors don't register them as military or communications hardware. These will be used to communicate between Earth and the old relays, once they are activated. However, activating the old relays can't be done with them, as they require a more conventional signal - and it will take getting beyond the orbital jamming to send that wake-up call - if those satellites can even be woken up. Complicating matters is that the off-planet bases don't have the activation codes, only we do. So, we have to send a potentially suicidal mission into one of the gaps between the orbits of the alien ships to attempt the activation. We're sending two shuttles for this job. Each will attempt to contact one of the two closest satellites in the closer orbit. Waking just one satellite will cause it to send signals to the others to activate."

"

"So, what will the shuttle complements be?" Dana asked.

"The shuttles selected are ones primarily meant for things like satellite launch and recovery, so are lightly armed. They require a pilot, co-pilot, a communications tech for the transmissions, and there are three defensive gun turrets, one of which can be handled by the copilot. The bays are large enough for two Redhawks, or four small mecha such as Logans or Hovertanks."

"Why only five crew?" Alex asked. "With two gunners, and a radioman, that would only leave either the pilot or copilot to go out if mech support was needed, with the other remaining behind at the controls. The shuttle can seat six; eight if the two extra mission workstations are installed. Why not use that space for three more mecha pilots, so that we can send out all four mecha and still keep some of the shuttle guns firing?"

"We didn't want to unnecessarily risk more people than we have to, and we expected a lack of volunteers. If you can get three volunteers from your own unit, we'll put in the extra seats for you. What about you, Borgnine?"

"My squadron's currently inactive from losses in the last battle, sir. There's just enough of us that I can crew the primary shuttle completely, and provide one of the pilots for the other. As Crystal's and Sterling's units have had the most success so far in combating the enemy, it would be best to crew the rest of the second shuttle from their troops."

"Fine, then. Report to Fokker Field at 0800 with all your equipment. Launch will be at 1000."

Half the active duty 15th ended up on the mission. Alex, Dana and Angie manned the three weapon stations, Bowie the radio station, and Noel took sensors, assisting Marie. Lt. Heideger, the volunteer from Borgnine's CU squadron, had the pilot's chair, while Marie rode shotgun. Alex was starting to feel more at home on the shuttle, as it had been his insistence that got Dana to the launch on time. He also made sure she left her fashion magazine behind, as he was sure it would end up floating around the shuttle in everyone's way if the artificial gravity went out, which the class of shuttle had been notorious for in training missions (but, then, that could have just been sadistic instructors).

Alex was needed for another reason. Bowie's congenital heart condition was corrected as a child, but this was the first time since the Hunter wedding that he'd been in space, and the first high-g military liftoff for him as well. For that matter, it was the first space shot for Dana & Noel in just as long. As the liftoff stress eased, and the artificial gravity kicked in, Alex got up and checked each of the others, starting with Bowie. All were normal, with only the high pulse and blood pressure one would expect from liftoff. As he wrapped up the checks by checking himself, the other officers began discussing strategy with Borgnine. Because he wasn't occupied, he was the first one Noel went to with the sensor data.

"Alex, I've detected position shifts by two of the motherships."

"Any indication of their vector?"

"Toward us."

"Great." Alex stood up, and walked into the conference. "Folks, we've got company coming."

Everyone went quiet, and Marie asked, "How much company?"

"Two big, bad ones."

"Well, so much for trying to do this quietly. Every, take your positions. Bowie, how soon can we contact Liberty?"

"Not for a while. I can try satellite activation as soon as we're fifty thousand kilometers out. It will take about five minutes from the time of activation for the antenna to realign to point toward Liberty, so we can expect a reply about a minute after that - IF everything is in working order."

"Get ready to raise your antenna -" Marie cut her command short, as she saw the other shuttle accelerating. "Borgnine! Cut your engines! Retrofire!"

"We're trying, Crystal, but nothing's working! I've got a runaway, and the computer's down."

"Eject, dammit!"

"We can't. The escape pod would just continue on a collision course, with something that large."

"Their mecha!" Noel yelled from the back of the pack. "Have them launch!"

"Borgnine, do it! At least four of you will make it out that way," Marie added, seizing Noel's inspiration and making it an order.

"Right." He turned to the others on his shuttle. "GO! Get out of here! I'll take care of the shuttle. Don't bother with putting on your suits until you're clear and retrofired off the collision course!"

The others left through the access way to the cargo bay, and Borgnine sat back down at the controls, trying desperately to buy the others as much time to launch as possible. The Redhawks were two-seaters, so the other four on board could escape. As the twor Redhawk gerwalks cleared the shuttle, and began flying away from the shuttle, he sent one last message. "Good luck, Marie, John; you're on your own." Seconds later, the Potemkin impacted against one of the two motherships, blossoming into a blinding flash of light, visible as a momentary star in the afternoon skies of New Detroit and Manhattan. The Redhawks themselves were pretty much out of combat, as it would take every bit of reaction mass they had just to alter their course to get back to Earth; staying around for combat would be out of the question.

The destruction of Borgnine's shuttle had varying effects on the crew of the other shuttle. Angie and Marie were the least affected outwardly, though it did unnerve them a bit. Heideger had tears streaming down his face, from both grief and rage, as Borgnine had been his squadron XO, and they had been two of only six uninjured survivors out of a wing of sixty pilots. Alex whispered a quiet prayer for the dead he had learned in a literature class in college. Bowie was visibly shaken, and was crossing himself in prayer as well. Noel was sobbing on her console, not wanting to look up at the aftermath. Dana had the strangest reaction of all; she just sat there in shock, staring at the image of the ships in the targeting monitor of her weapons console.

However, the crash appeared to have no effect whatsoever on the ship it hit, or its defenders. Within seconds, the shuttle was pounced upon by the several of the alien troop ships, acting as fighters since their only weapons were forward-facing. Some made a half-hearted attempt to chasee the two escaping Veritechs, but massed missile fire from the two proto-Alphas deterred pursuit. The shuttle wasn't as lucky, as they HAD to stay in harm's way to complete their mission. However, the shuttle's weapons appeared to be up to the task, as it only took a few hits for them to destroy the larger red craft. Conversely, the transports' weapons seemed to have little effect on the armor of the shuttle. But, one gun on the shuttle wasn't firing.

Dana was still in shock from the destruction of the other shuttle, and repeated attempts to rouse her by simple talking failed. Finally, Marie hauled back and slapped some sense into Dana, bringing Dana back to the verge of coherence. The enemy finished the job, as they finally got a hit in good enough to shake the shuttle, with the impact close to Dana. Within seconds, Dana was firing back, back to normal.

"Nice to have you back, Lieutenant," Dante commented, as Dana's fire quickly became the most accurate from the shuttle.

"Thanks, Angie; but tell Lieutenant Crystal if she ever slaps me again, I'll chuck her out an airlock."

"You and what army?" Marie snapped back between shots, but with obvious humor intended.

They continued onward, their course taking them uncomfortably close to the two motherships, but it couldn't be helped. Slowly, the enemy started to get more accurate hits, and everyone was getting nervous; especially Bowie.

"Lieutenant Crystal; I need the shuttle on a steady course before I can send the signal."

"I'll do what I can, but the enemy's blocking our flight path..." Suddenly, the incoming fire stopped, as the attackers broke off at high speed. "I don't like this."

"Like what?"

"What did the Zentraedi and RDF always break off from an incoming enemy for?" Alex asked, already knowing and dreading the answer.

"A main gun shot - they can't be serious!" Marie exclaimed. "Do you know how hard it is to hit a target as fast and small as we are?"

"I'm picking up a directed force field," Noel called out from the sensor station. "Probably the guidance for a particle beam projector."

The beams lashed out, barely missing the shuttle, as Marie made evasive maneuvers.

"Evidently they don't care how difficult it is,"Angie commented. "You were right, Alex, but I wish you hadn't been."

"Like I wanted to be right?"

"Hang on, everyone," Marie called out through the clutter. "I'm going to get us in closer."

"Closer?"

"Weapons like those don't have a maximum range to speak of; at least not short enough to do us any good. However, if we get in close enough, they won't be able to traverse fast enough to hit us."

Soon, they were almost "under" the ship, if the original orientation of the assault ships that attacked them earlier was any indication. The rapid particle beam fire had stopped when they'd cut their previous distance in half, and other types of weapons fire had yet to take its place.

"Nice move, Lieutenant," Angie commented. "What do you think they were up to?"

"They probably thought we'd panic and try to pull back. If we had, we would have been vaporized." Marie then turned her attention to the surface of the ship. Noel; any sign or the AA batteries that took out most of the fighters in the last battle?"

"Not yet; they could be retractable."

"This thing's gigantic," Angie understated. It's like flying upside-down over the Death Star."

"And who are you supposed to be, Angie?"Dana teased. "Chewbacca?"

"Grrr..." Angie growled, trying to break the tension.

"I HATE creepy silences," Bowie commented.

"I suppose you'd rather have them still shooting at us?" Angie joked, still playing the comedian.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Alex said, joining in.

"Cut the comedy back there!" Marie snapped. "Private; any luck sending the signal yet?"

"I can't be sure... there's a lot of interference from the other ship."

"Then, I guess we'll have to pull further out. Get ready to resend the codes."

"Ready, and waiting."

"John, take us up," she said to the pilot. "I'm going to suit up, to take some of the heat off of you."

The AA fire started the instant they pulled back out from the ship, followed by three assault ships' worth of Bioroids. Luckily, the closeness of the shuttle to the mothership prevented the Bioroids from using their platform guns, limiting them to their hand-held weapon pods. Marie finally launched her Logan, and was immediately set upon by the Bioroids. She managed to take out four before taking her first minor hits. Then, the red Bioroid turned its attention to her. She managed to avoid it at first, taking down another half-dozen blues in the process, but it hit her hard as she moved to protect the antenna. Alex was first to jump up to go back to the hangar, and join the fight. There was just one problem...

"Dana, get back here!"

"What's up?"

"That last hit knocked your tank loose. I can't get into mine, until yours is moved!"

"I'm hit!" Marie cried out, from outside. "Dana; it's that red Bioroid. He's too quick for me!"

"Hang on, Marie! Alex and I are on our way!"

"Thanks; the more the merrier."

"Bowie, any response yet?"

"No, but it's not been long enough yet. Ask me again in a minute."

"Dana, Alex! Form a circle with me!"

The two Hovertanks quickly formed up with the smaller Logan, and began making quick work of the blues. Finally, the red tried its luck again.

"Dana, Red's coming your way!"

Dana had got the pattern of the red's evasive moves, and led one of its anticipated turns. It played directly into her play, and was blown off its platform by her shot.

"Got him!"

"Good shot!" Alex commented, "But a blue grabbed him on the way by, and is hauling him in. I get the feeling we'll see him again soon. At least they're retreating, now." He then turned to Marie, whose Logan was badly shot up. "You think you can get that leaky rowboat back into the cargo bay?"

"No problems some Bondo won't cover up," Marie joked, the wisps of smoke from several slug holes showing the boast was a little exaggerated.

"Guys, I got some bad news," Angie reported as they were closing the cargo bay.

"What is it?"

"Heideger was hit by a power surge from the nav computer. He's out cold; maybe comatose. Noel's found a weak pulse, but we'll have to keep a close watch on him on the flight down. At least he got us on a course back toward Earth before it happened."

"Damn! I'll be up there to help you with him in a second," Alex replied. "Find out if there's a blanket in the survival closet, and wrap him up in it, and move him to my station." Just when they thought they'd made it through unscathed, this happens.

"On the other hand, check this out. Bowie, switch it to their com channel."

"- is Space Station Liberty, calling Earth. Do you copy? We have relayed your message to Moon Base. Repeat, Moon Base has resumed contact as well."

"Bowie, send them confirmation, and when to expect the communications system to come on line full-time."

"Yes, ma'am."

Alex parked his Battloid mode Hovertank, and tried to open the airlock to the crew section. The door refused to open, giving a red light in response.

"Hey, Angie! Close the airlock door!"

"It is shut, Alex."

"That's not what the indicator says!"

"Let me check..." A minute passed. "Lieutenants, you're not gonna like this. One of the hits during the battle warped the door frame on this side. The air lock's not usable."

"Then, who's gonna fly us back in?" Dana asked.

"Angelo, can you turn on the auto-landing system?" Marie asked.

"No ma'am, I can't. I tried to turn it on when I found Heideger. It was one of the systems that got fried with him."

"Great. Are the telemetry and flight readouts still functional?"

"More or less. I'm not sure how reliable they'll be after the surge, but they appear to be functioning normally."

"Then, you'll have to land us," Alex replied, realizing why Marie was asking.

"WHAT?"

"Think of it as a video game. I've seen you fly sims; this is not that different. Marie will give you constant instructions, until we get to where Monument can take over helping you. Put Noel in the co-pilot seat, to help you. Have Bowie monitor John for me, and keep me appraised on his condition, on another channel."

"That, I can do."

"Sergeant, don't worry;" Marie said, trying to calm Angie. "Flying one of these shuttles is easier than falling out of an alert bunk."

"Why don't I like the sound of that?"

A half-hour later, the shuttle rolled to a stop on the tarmac of Fokker Field, and the crew debarked, the officers having to jump/fly their mecha out of the cargo bay.

"Sergeant, that was an excellent landing," Marie complemented.

"Don't thank me, thank Noel. She anticipated every command you gave, including the reentry procedure. She flew that shuttle like she could have done it with her eyes closed. All I did was relay your commands, and help with the flight stick."

"Are you joking?" Dana couldn't believe it. "Noel's never been in a flight simulator before, let alone a real cockpit."

"Maybe she takes after her parents," Angie chided.

"Not likely, seeing how she's adopted," Dana fired back.

"Anyway," Marie interjected, trying to change the subject. "It's probably worth a promotion to her, not to mention a medal of some sort."

"You'll have no argument from us on that," Dana replied, as the others nodded their approval.

The six headed to debriefing, as soon as Alex made sure Heideger was stable. After the debriefing, they and the crew that escaped from the Potemkin went to a bar and bought a round of drinks in the memory of Borgnine, the only fatality on their side. The fact that his death had been a freak accident was not lost on them. All the skill in the world wouldn't stop a cruel twist of fate.

**Chapter Six:**

"That night, in the ruins of New Macross, was when it finally dawned on us how close we'd become. How she acted instinctively, to save my life at the risk of her own, was not only a sign of our bond, but an ominous portent of things to come."

- Alex Tyler, describing his relationship with Noel Freeman, in Hopes and Dreams: The Personal Relationships of the Second Robotech War, by Claudia Hunter Telon

**2 November, 2029**

"So, who's got patrol duty tonight?" Alex loudly asked Dana in the barracks lounge, over Bowie's stirring piano rendition of the Spinal Tap classic "Lick My Love Pump". It had been over ten weeks since the space mission, and everyone was starting to go stir-crazy from the combination of constant alert with total inactivity. If it wasn't for the presence of the alien ships at the L-5 Lagrange point, things would otherwise seemingly be back to normal.

"I haven't made up my mind yet," Dana replied. I'm about to go nuts, sitting here while the enemy sits up there, neither of us doing nothing. All of us are. All the while, the Brass keeps us from having leave, citing 'imminent danger.' " Dana said the last two words parodying Leonard's pompous accent.

"So, you're thinking about taking it yourself, then?"

"Yes, and taking Bowie as well. I know he's starting to lose it; it's the only time he plays music from old comedy films, like that instrumental he's banging out right now. Trust me - you don't want to KNOW where it came from, and what it's called."

"Are you sure? Maybe you're confusing that piece with another."

"I don't think so. Besides, before you came back from your volunteer shift at the hospital, he led the entire squadron through a rendition of 'Men in Tights' - choreographed!"

"And they went along with it?"

"Every single one, except Noel and me, and she was doing the choreography!"

"This is worse than I thought." Alex could picture the scene in his head, and just the ABILITY to do so scared him. "Got room for two more on the patrol?"

The patrol was one of those make-work types that military commanders seemed to love, to send people out into secure areas in order to find absolutely nothing. Essentially, they were to drive out to the border of the New Macross Reclamation Zone and back, at a speed that made it unlikely to notice things anyway. Dana and Bowie left their bike helmets in the garage, against SOP, but Noel wore hers, and was unusually insistent that Alex wear his - not that he would have gone riding without it, being all too familiar with what can happen to a person in a crash without one.

They rode out in a festive mood, racing some times, doing stunts at others; an uninformed viewer might think they didn't have a care in the world, or a real reason to be out there. Along the way, they stopped for a while at the ruins of Alex's childhood home. He had sold it after Hikaru's death, and it was destroyed by a wildfire two years later. He picked through the rubble a while, coming up with a couple of old Indian arrowheads that, as a boy, he had stuck behind a loose rock in the fireplace.

He rejoined the others on a bluff overlooking the old Macross/Monument highway, watching the sun go down. As he looked at the others in the fading light, a strange, old memory seemed to come out of nowhere. A memory of Dana, Noel, and two others on this same bluff, but with him only as a boy. He shrugged it off, figuring it was just his mind playing tricks on him.

They continued on toward the New Macross ruins, and were about to go further than the patrol was intended, when the call came in from headquarters.

"Dana," Bowie shouted over the wind roar, "HQ says we need to return to base, right now! There's been some strange activity in orbit by the aliens."

"I don't know whether to be happy or afraid to hear that," Dana joked to the others. "Okay, let's come about, and-" Dana stopped short, as she noticed strange lights in the distance. "Do you guys see what I see?"

They all turned to look in the same direction as Dana. In the middle of the New Macross ruins, a highly restricted area, the glow of lots of artificial lighting could be seen, including a stray spotlight beam.

"Yes, Dana, we do," Alex replied to the rhetorical question. "It looks like somebody's lighting up the center of Macross sector brighter than a ball field."

"But, who could be doing it?"

"I dunno, Dana; and I'm not exactly eager to find out, either."

"Bowie..."

"Just kidding!" Bowie replied, though they could all tell he hadn't been. There was something creepy about the now-buried ruins at night; some described it as a feeling of being 'haunted'. But, in reality, few had died in the city's destruction, and most of those were on the two SDFs.

"Okay, then; let's check it out."

"But, what about headquarters? Shouldn't we call in?"

"Alex, if they're that interested in us, they'll come looking. Besides, there's a good chance that the people with the lights could be monitoring our communications. I don't want to tip them off that we're coming." Alex had to concede the possibility.

They took off down the ruined road toward New Macross, using only the lead bike's war-subdued headlight to light the way. Twenty minutes later, only a ridge of dirt and debris separated them from the source of the lights. Amazingly, no sentries had been posted on the ridge. Quietly, they crept up the ridge, and looked into the heart of the old city - the filled crater where the three dead ships were buried.

An amazing panorama was before them. On the far side of the lights, a fully functional spaceship was grounded. It was about the same size as the Southern Cross' largest interplanetary shuttle, and probably served most of the same purposes. The lights that had drawn them here appeared to be some sort of autonomous bipedal robots, with spotlights for bodies. In turn, these robots were illuminating the SDF-1 mound for a group of Bioroids, who were busy digging into the mound, as if searching for something.

Suddenly, they could hear a voice they "knew" was coming from the red Bioroid, yet no speakers were visible, no echos were present, and it was unhampered by the noise of the digging.

"There can be no mistake," the tinny voice stated. "The creatures of this planet have attempted to disguise the Protoculture with a radioactive substance." The Bioroid walked around the area, scanning the mound with a giant hand-held sensor. "You will notify the mothership that our calculations were correct; we will make further preparations to excavate."

The four ATACs' curiosity was getting the better of them as they peered over the edge, watching the blue Bioroids move around heavy equipment. Finally, Dana realized that headquarters HAD to be told of this, and she motioned for the others to begin pulling back.

Without warning, the Red turned toward them, vocalizing (?) "I sense an enemy presence."

"Geddown! Freeze!" Dana whispered curtly to the others. Alex and Bowie needed no encouragement, but both Noel and Dana quickly looked back over the edge after ducking only briefly.

Suddenly, it hit Alex. "Bowie," he whispered; "that voice we've been hearing. We're hearing it with our minds, not our ears! It's some kind of telepathy."

"What's wrong with Dana and Noel?"

"Huh?" Alex looked up at the girls, who seemed to be transfixed by what they saw. He hoped the 'deer in the headlights' analogy that popped into his head was not a correct one. He and Bowie edged back up to where they could see as well, and saw the alien. He was human, or very close; tall, lean and handsome. Alex almost felt jealous that Noel was staring at the man. Something about the alien's appearance nagged at Alex, possibly from his studies in school. The man seemed familiar; but how, from where? Then, Bowie slipped, sending a stream of gravel cascading down the slope toward the aliens.

"Just as I thought!" the telepathic shout went out, as his mouth definitely didn't move. "There they are! Do not attempt to escape! You will remain where you are! Lights! Sentries, take them!"

"Oh, great!" Alex moaned. "You've done it now, Bowie. Let's get out of here!" Alex shouted to the others, who really didn't need the encouragement, as they scrambled back down to their hoverbikes. "Dana, you and Bowie go one way, Noel and me the other. Hopefully, it'll throw them off!"

"Sounds good!" Dana shouted back, too shaken by her experience to come up with a plan of her own. "See you when we get out of this!" Dana hopped on her bike, taking off with Bowie down the road they'd originally followed the lights in on. Alex and Noel took off a second later, down the avenue that used to lead away from the Daedalus. After a few seconds, Alex called back to Noel on their helmet radios, to get an estimate of the situation.

"How many are following us?"

"Two blues; they're gaining on us. Take evasive! They're raising their gun pods!"

The Bioroids began firing wildly at the two cycles, more in an attempt to unnerve and cause a crash, as oppose to actually trying to hit. This made the tense situation even worse, because if they'd been aiming, at least an attempt could have been made to dodge the attacks. Suddenly, Noel drew her bike even with Alex, then dove off her bike into him, sending them both tumbling off into a pool of water. As he fell, Alex saw his hovercycle explode in a ball of fire from a direct hit.

The water was cold, but their tight uniforms and helmets kept out much of the water. Alex tried to surface, but Noel pulled him back down. She held him to her for a long minute, their faceplates touching. Finally, they rose to the surface together, to find the Bioroids gone.

"Noel, why did you do that? I could have drowned."

"Would you rather have been captured or killed? I know CPR, if it came to that; and besides, you had plenty of air trapped in your helmet. We had to stay under, to convince them we were dead."

"I hate it, but you're right. But, why didn't you warn me what you were going to do? When did you notice he was going to shoot me?"

"I didn't have time; and I truthfully don't know how I knew. I just... just knew you were in danger."

"Did you see where your bike went?" Alex asked, quickly changing the subject. "It's a ten mile hike just to get back to the patrol path. It would be morning before we'd get back to where they'd actually be looking for us."

"Isn't that it, over there?" Noel pointed to an angular shape, sticking out of a ditch.

Alex walked over to the ditch, and found the bike sitting right side up, but nose down in the ditch at an awkward angle. He slid down the back of the seat, bracing himself on the foot rests, and restarted the engine. He adjusted the throttle and thrusters, then boosted it backwards out of the ditch, almost throwing himself of it in the process.

"How does it look?"

"Driveable, but not very fast. The front gear's bent. Well, do we go back to base, or go looking for Dana and Bowie."

"Dana's in trouble; she needs us."

"How do you know?"

"Trust me. For some reason, ever since we were little, we've been closer than if we'd been real sisters; twins, even. When one of us is in trouble, the other knows."

"I find that a little hard to believe, but we'll go look for her."

"Thank you, Alex."

**Chapter Seven:**

"I've really, truly fallen in love with Noel. If anyone else is actually reading this, you probably figured that out by now, and it doesn't make any difference who knows. But, with the events of the last wee or so, a whole new level of complexity has been added to our relationship, and it's bothering her a lot more than it does me. Questions like 'Who is Noel Freeman, really?'; 'Where did she come from?'; "Who are her real parents?' I know she wants - even NEEDS - to know these things, but what if the answers are NOT what she wants to hear?"

- The Collected Journals of Alex Tyler, entry dated 11/4/2029

They found Dana on the path towards the south, nursing a sprained shoulder. Alex broke open the first aid kit on Noel's bike, and put a sling on Dana's arm. They then managed to all squeeze onto the one hovercycle, and began the long ride back to base, expecting pursuit to start any second. But the pursuit never came. Any other time, Alex would have been thrilled to be sandwiched between two good-looking females (well, probably more so if one wasn't Dana). But, with Bowie in the hands of the enemy, there was a real damper on their spirits on the trip back.

As luck would have it, the hovercycle finally gave out from its abuse as the reached the base perimeter, and they had to walk to the guard shack to request a ride to headquarters. There, they received a lukewarm welcome from General Emerson, who was glad to see the girls alive, but was even more worried about his godson. The debriefing didn't last very long, at least not for Alex and Noel. They were let go after filing their reports, and they waited outside for Dana. While waiting, Alex asked Noel some questions that had been haunting him.

"Noel, I was wondering something. How well do you remember your parents, and the people you grew up with?"

"Mom and Dad were pretty busy as part of Skull Squadron. They gave me everything I ever wanted, but they always seemed overprotective of me. Most of the time that they weren't there, I was babysat by at least one other member of Skull; either Miriya, Marie or Karen. That is, unless it was a full alert, in which case Dana's 'uncles' Rico, Bron and Konda would watch us. They were funny; almost like having the Stooges for babysitters. When they weren't being silly, they taught us about the Zentraedi culture - what there was of it, that is."

"Do you remember anything about your birth parents? According to your records, you were adopted at age five."

"Not really, though I think the Freemans were their friends. The earliest memories I have are from before the time of my adoption, but the Freemans were part of my life even then. I found some pictures of me with the Freemans, looking as young as two, posing with Uncle Scott and Aunt Janet. They're reprints, dating from a few months before the adoption, according to the print dates."

Alex got a sinking feeling, in the pit of his stomach. Noel's answers, instead of dismissing his suspicions, went even further in shaking the foundations of the official story of her origins. A story Alex had began to doubt on the day he first met her, and had been disturbed even further by his strange flashback(?) on the cliff by his childhood home.

"This may seem a strange question, but what is your natural hair color?" Alex had never once seen the type of fading, darkening or unevenness one would associate even with a salon color job, over time, and it was one of the things that always seemed to be pounding on his internal "alert" button.

"This is, silly. Why do you ask?"

Alex's jaw almost hit the floor. All this time, and Noel didn't even suspect? Sure, lots of people have dye jobs; it had come into fashion before the SDF-1 launch, and the fame of Dana's father (with his hair dyed to match his blue Veritech) and the actual presence of these colors in Zentraedi genetics only made them more popular. But to go through life, not realizing you were unique?

"Only Zentraedi have green hair naturally."

"But..."

"With your hair color, it's possible that Kayra may actually be your real mother, or your 'aunt' Karen. But, why would this be such a deep, dark secret that even you were kept from knowing it?"

"I...I don't know," she replied, hesitantly. "Alex, could you please try to find out my past, my real past, for me? I'm not sure who or what I am anymore." Noel was starting to lose what little composure she had left, and Alex couldn't blame her. Her early life had been a total fabrication, and on top of that, she was denied her true heritage as well.

There were only two possibilities; either Noel was half-Zentraedi, or she somehow was a Zentraedi herself. The last wasn't as far-fetched as it sounded, Alex thought. Both Emil Lang and his reclusive former colleague, Lazlo Zand, had sufficient knowledge to reprogram a Zentraedi cloning chamber, and Noel could have be the result of one of their experiments.

"Alex, please hold me; I'm scared." Noel was shivering; whether it was a result of their earlier dunking, or the shock of the revelations of the last few minutes, was the least of her worries.

"Noel, don't cry," he whispered, as he held her close. "I'll help you, no matter what it takes."

"My, my- don't you two make such a lovely scene," Dana said loudly, spoiling the tender moment.

"Alex straightened up, trying to act more formal within earshot of the General's office, while still comforting Noel. "Dana, how did the rest of the debriefing go?"

"As expected. We need to get back to barracks; I have something to do tonight." Alex had gotten to know Dana well enough over the last eight months to know exactly what "something" entailed.

"Count us out, Dana. Noel's having problems, and needs my help. Tonight's been hard on her."

"Is that your personal opinion or your medical one?"

"Both. Now, can we cut the B.S. and get moving? She needs some bed rest."

"Yes, Doctor," Dana teased, only to notice that Noel's knees were buckling. "Alex, catch her!"

Alex caught Noel as she passed out, and picked her up in his arms. "Can we go now, Dana?"

"After you," Dana replied, holding the outer door of the waiting room with a flourish. "By the way, why was she so upset when I came out? I know it just can't be from Bowie's situation."

"She found out that her past wasn't what she'd been told."

"Such that she's half-Zentraedi?"

"How did you know?" they stepped into the waiting elevator.

"I figured it would come out, eventually. I've known as long as we've known each other. That's why our babysitters paid as much attention to her as to me. We were the only two of our kind to survive the race wars in the Southlands, as far as anyone knows. She was classified 'Top Secret' for her own protection. I was too publicly known, thanks to my parents, and my role as a baby in the capture of the Factory Satellite. Having a second crossbreed in spitting distance, as her father would say, would make the two of us too tempting a target for radicals on either side. I was nearly kidnaped several times, and the one time an attempt succeeded, they got Noel as well."

"Really? I never heard of this incident."

"Not surprising, seeing as it was never publicly announced. We were rescued by our 'aunts', Karen & Marie. In fact, it was that mission that introduced my cousin Marie to Noel's Uncle Scott. The kidnapers knew what they had, with me, but not with Noel. It was the fact that, despite her hair color, no one knew she was half-Zentraedi, that the decision was made to raise her to let her think she was totally human. We were tutored privately till 2023, and it was before we entered real schools that Rolf gave me a letter from our parents, asking me to protect Noel's secret, even to the point of convincing her of the validity of the cover story."

The elevator door opened, and they remained quiet as an MP helped them get Noel out of the building and into a jeep Rolf had arranged for them. When the MP left, they resumed the conversation.

"Dana, are you sure you can drive with that bum wing?"

"I can handle it. In fact, get this thing off of me! My arm is all right, now."

"Okay, okay. Just be sure to let me check it out when you get back tomorrow. But, back to the subject of Noel." Alex pulled a blanket out of the back of the jeep, and draped it over the unconscious Noel, who was curled up in a fetal position on the seat. "Do you know who her real parents were?"

"No, but Shannon and Kayra always seemed to act like she wasn't adopted, which is silly."

"Why?"

"Because Shannon would have had to have been twelve when Noel was conceived. I don't think a kid that young could have gotten lucky with a Quadrono, no matter how naive some Zentraedi were. I didn't meet the Freemans socially until early 2017 anyway, except Kayra, who met my mom during the reconstruction of the Southlands."

"That's right. When the bigots destroyed Kayra's singing career, your parents recruited her."

"Kayra was one of the few Zentraedi Veritech pilots not to serve in the 23rd Squadron, because my parents were so impressed by her skills."

"Well, enough of this for now. Start the jeep, and let's go. At least you've given me a starting point for the research I'll have to do to dig up the truth."

"Alex, just take care of her for me; especially if the exercise tonight goes FUBAR." Dana didn't have to define FUBAR, as it was obvious she was referring to the possibility of the squadron - especially Bowie and herself - not coming back.

"I will."

Alex had put Noel to bed, and headed for the ready room, to see if Louie could hack him computer access to several classified systems. He got there at the same time as Dana, to find Dante blocking the door, trying to be a putz.

"Well, well, lieutenants... Did you forget something out there in the desert? Like Bowie, for instance?"

"Move it, Angie." Dana was upset enough about what had happened, and wasn't in the mood to have salt rubbed into the wound.

"Oho! You talk tough for someone who could abandon their best friend like that."

"If I hadn't come back, I wouldn't be in any position to rescue him, would I?" Dana began shifting her weight, which Alex noticed, but Angie didn't.

"May I, Dana?" Alex asked, winking at her.

"Of course, Alex."

"Have some respect for your commanders, dirtbag!" With that, Alex executed a perfect leg sweep, sending Dante crashing to the ground as his supporting leg went out from under him. As he hit the floor, Dana put the heel of her boot on his neck.

"Got it? I thought so. Sergeant, it is my considered opinion that this unit needs some night training maneuvers." She moved her foot, and gave him a hand up.

"Like, in that off-limits area?" Angie caught on quickly.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Sergeant. Get the squad suited up; we're rolling out in 15 minutes. The only two staying behind are Alex and Noel, for medical reasons."

Angie smirked at the last, but figured it was none of his business. Dana, however, wasn't liking the thoughts apparently going through Angie's head.

"You have your orders, Sergeant. Get Moving!"

"Yes, ma'am!" He saluted, then ran back into the male enlisted barracks to wake up the others, who had been catching some illicit shut-eye while their officers were out, as they couldn't have been ordered out without one.

"As for you, Dr. Tyler; don't do anything to Noel that she doesn't consent to. I've heard of doctors like you."

"Hey, I'm a doctor, not Sean Phillips."

"Keep it that way, or you become the third female member of the 15th, if you catch my drift."

"Understood, loud and clear."

**Chapter Eight:**

"Because somewhere in one of those memories is the evidence. If I get in far enough, I could reconstruct it." - Kevin Flynn, Tron (novelization, by Brian Daley)

Alex started his research in the files he could access legally; Noel's medical and military records. There wasn't much to be found there.

| Personnel & Medical File: Armies of the Southern Cross |

| Last Name: Freeman First: Noel Middle: Karen |

| DoB: 25 December 2012 Height: 165 cm Weight: 50 kg |

| Hair: Green * Eyes: Green Race: Caucasian |

| Birthmarks/Other Distinguishing Features: Scars: 0, Tattoes: 0 |

| Permanent Green Hair color; result of gene therapy accident |

| (Experimental) using Zentraedi DNA, as a child. |

| Immunizations: All current, next due 12/2030 as per schedule |

| Medical History Notes: No major illnesses or allergies that |

| effect combat performance. |

| Full Medical Files Personnel Files Return to Main |

Alex clicked first on the link to Noel's full medical history, and it filled the screen. At least, part of it did. Conspicuous by their absence were any entries prior to 2018, the year of her adoption, including the supposed condition that was the reason for the "gene therapy" excuse for her hair color. He called up the security access page, and entered his override code. The code, under normal circumstances, allowed access to records sealed by court order, such as the parental information of adoptees. Instead of answers, a message came back that he'd never ran into in the medical system before; only in the research system.

**The information you have requested is classified, under a NEED-TO-KNOW basis. Only the following persons can grant access to these files, through Security Regimen Delta.**

"Regimen Delta? God, somebody must have been paranoid," Alex mused. The security regimen in question was the most intensive ever used, requiring retinal, voice, DNA and password parameters to be met, before the information could be unsealed. Alex took a look through the list of names. All were familiar, but only two were still on Earth.

**Hunter, Richard A. RAdm, REF**

**Hunter, Lisa Hayes Adm, RDF/REF**

**Lang, Emil Head of Robotech Research, REF Branch**

**Grant, Jean Surgeon General, REF**

**Emerson, Rolf BGen, ASC**

**Sterling, Maximillian Cmdr, REF**

**Sterling, Miriya Parino Cmdr, REF**

**Freeman, Scott C. Cmdr, REF**

**Freeman, Marie Sterling LCmdr, REF**

**Ellison, Karen N. Lieut, REF**

**Freeman, Noel K.**

**Clearance set 4 January 2020**

Emerson had clearance; presumably, because of his position as her guardian, as "Bullethead" didn't. Noel was the other, but the password for her would be a guess, at best. Then, he noticed something odd. Noel's middle name was Karen; Karen Ellison's middle name began with "N". A couple of clicks later, and his hunch was confirmed; Karen's middle name was Noel. Another twist in an already twisted situation. Did that mean that Karen was Noel's mother, clone-sister, or what? It could even be a red herring, for that matter, put into the records by the person entering the files, as Karen's middle name was not entered anywhere in the records until the security block was laid down on Noel's records. He bounced back over to the ASC computer net, and went to Noel's personnel records.

| Personnel Records: Noel Karen Freeman |

| Select desired type of Record: |

| Pay Records |

| Military Service Records |

| Birth Certificate |

| School Records |

| Miscellaneous Records |

| Return to Summary |

| Return to Main Menu |

He chose the Miscellaneous Records first, checking to see if there was anything unusual in the adoption or guardianship papers. The documents were there, in perfect order. However, there were no indications as to the identities of Noel's birth parents on the adoption papers. Uncommon, but not unheard of, especially for foundlings. He backed up one level, and selected the birth certificate.

For all appearances, it was a perfectly normal birth certificate - which was odd, because of the lack of parental information. Then Alex noticed a few other things that didn't seem right. He used another terminal to get back into the RDF database, to check out these hunches. He struck gold on the first one.

First, there was the attending doctor for the delivery. Jean Grant was listed, but she was on leave for that entire month, taking care of her own ailing child. Second, the birth location was listed as Brasilia, but the Grants didn't move there until 2014. There were only two possibilities: either the doctor's name had been changed as part of the security classification, or the entire birth certificate was bogus. He suspected the latter.

Of course, asking Dr. Grant (had she not gone with the Sentinels) would have led him back to the circle of people with clearance, so there was an apparent method to the madness of those who set up the facade. But with so many of those listed being with the REF, God only knew where, it was left up to Noel and her guardian to try and pierce this final veil of secrecy.

He checked in on Noel, and found that she was shivering. Their earlier soaking had definitely affected her more than she had initially let on, and she had been the one catching the brunt of the wind chill from the movement of the overloaded hovercycle, being in front of Alex and Dana. He went to her closet, and pulled out an extra blanket, which he used to cover her. He then laid down beside her on the bed, on top of the edge of the blanket, and fell asleep.

Alex had a bizarre dream that night. He was on an alien planet, where he was part of a force seeding the planet with a strangely familiar, yet alien, plant. In the midst of the procedure, his ship departed unexpectedly, followed by the arrival of those he instinctively knew to be the enemy.

A fire fight ensued between the insectoid enemy craft and his fellow troopers, and it was only then, from his equipment, that he realized he was a Zentraedi. As the enemy broke through to the command building, which had both Zentraedi and Micronian sized sections, his team raced to avert disaster. They entered the building, only to hear the cry go out "Zor is Down! Zor is Down!", as the last of the enemy fought to the death against forces that included both Dolza and Breetai, the latter's famous facial wound freshly gained and bleeding. As the fight wound down, he felt himself collapse from his wounds, and everything faded out.

Alex woke with a start; the room was dark, and he could hear thunder in the distance - but there wasn't a storm front for hundreds of kilometers. He went to the window, opened the blinds, and in the false dawn saw the streaks of supersonic aircraft heading toward the ruins of Macross. Not knowing whether this was a good or bad sign, he went back to bed, and collapsed onto it once more, his exhaustion overtaking his apprehension about his unit's situation.

"Wake up, sleepyheads!" a voice yelled out, stirring Alex from his fitful sleep.

"Wha... Bowie?"

"Yeah, I'm alive and in person, Alex. You look like your night was almost as bad as mine."

"I doubt it; but it was a pretty rough night, anyway."

"How is Noel? She slept through my yelling, so she must be out of it pretty bad."

"She suffered a bit of hypothermia last night, when we got dunked in a pond to escape the Bioroids. As a result, she's coming down with a cold. Other than that, she's fine. What time is it, anyway?"

"About 1500."

"1500? I've been asleep almost 13 hours - not counting when the jets going over woke me up."

"Well, you got a lot more than I did. I spent the night locked up in a storage room by Zor, the alien commander. I was nearly electrocuted trying to escape."

"Wait a minute... What did you say the alien's name was?"

"Zor... He's the red Bioroid pilot that keeps giving Dana fits. He's a real hands-on type, from what I can tell."

Part of Alex's dream came back to him. In the dream, the commander was human-sized, and looked exactly like the Bioroid pilot. When he was hit by the blast effect of one of the enemy's plasma weapons, the cry went out "Zor is down!" But, before Alex's persona in the dream fell, that Zor had died from his injuries. And, where had he heard that name before? He'd have to think about it after being awake for a while, and his head cleared.

"Thanks for waking me up, Bowie. I'm not sure your other 'sister' would have approved of where I spent the night."

"Are you kidding? She was the one who found you in here. She thought it was so cute, especially the way you were laying there with your arm around Noel like you were protecting her from something."

"Really?"

"Dana may threaten a lot; but deep inside, she's a born romantic." Bowie looked around, to see if Dana was listening. "She'll never admit it, though."

Noel finally stirred. "Alex, Bowie?" Noel asked, through her sniffles. "How long have I been out?"

"Nice of you to rejoin the living, sis," Bowie prodded. "But, it sounds like you need to stay in bed, though. As for the time, it's after three in the afternoon."

"When did you get back?"

"About fifteen minutes ago. Dana and the squadron rescued me at sunrise, but got pinned down. Help arrived, but it turned into a slaughter when the enemy's reserves showed up." Bowie looked down at his feet. "Maybe it would have been better if I hadn't been rescued."

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Bowie. They would have ordered an attack on the ship anyway. If Dana hadn't sprung you, the battle might have been worse, as some of the others might have held back, fearing that Emerson would be upset if you were hurt by friendly fire."

"If you say so, Alex; but how can I be sure?" Bowie went quiet again for a few seconds, then continued. "I'll leave you two to get straightened up, and to decide whether Noel's fit enough to join us for a late brunch in the mess at half-past."

"If not, we'll just have to feed her breakfast in bed."

"Well, I'll see you two later - I need to take a quick shower."

As Bowie left, Noel sat up in the bed. "Well, did you find out anything?"

"Not much. All your birth records are fakes, though. Every approach I've tried so far runs into classified information. The only two people cleared for the information are Emerson and yourself, but there's a password block on it we'll have to try to figure out."

"When can we try to get into it?"

"First, I want you to get better. Besides, it will take weeks to arrange things with Nova for the other ID checks, if we go through channels. I did find out one thing from Dana, though. You're half-Zentraedi, but she didn't know more than that."

"At least I know that much for certain, now." Noel paused. "I also know that I love you, Alex."

"And, I love you, too." The confession of the feelings they'd inferred, but never really spoken before, made Alex a little nervous, among other things. "I'm going to go change clothes myself, and when I get back, I want you to be in your thermal underwear, with your sweats over them, so you'll stay warm during the meal."

"Okay. See you in a few minutes, then."

Alex stood up from the bed, and left the room. He got about ten steps from the door when he broke into a run, finishing in a cartwheel shouting "She loves me!" to anyone who happened to be listening. His day was already starting to look brighter.

**Chapter Nine:**

"If I ran away

I'd never have the strength to go very far;

How could they hear

The beating of my heart?"

- Madonna, Live to Tell; from the movie At Close Range

**18 December, 2029**, 4:32 PM

"Why can't we figure out the password? AAUUGH!" Alex moaned, imitating a classic 20th century comic strip character, pounding on the desk, next to the keyboard.

"Calm down, 'Charlie Brown';" Noel quipped back, catching the reference. "We can always go to Uncle Rolf for help."

It had taken six weeks of red tape clearing to get access to the GMP equipment that would allow them to try and break the seals on the information. They had successfully passed all the hurdles, except the most important - the password to the computer lock on the box that held the documents.

"I hope so. We've tried every word, name or phrase we could think of, that we thought your family might choose for you."

Noel dialed up Emerson's personal voice line, and he answered after the first ring. Noel put it on the speaker phone.

"Emerson speaking."

"Uncle Rolf, this is Noel."

"Noel, how are you doing? I heard you were sick recently."

"It was only a bad cold; I'm fine now."

"You just missed Dana and Bowie. They convinced me to let your unit attack one of the ships again, if the one currently approaching drops into the atmosphere. It's the same one that picked up the escort-class ship that was digging around in the ruins."

"Louie, our team resident technical genius, thinks he's found a weakness."

"So I've been told. Now, how can I help you?"

"I found out a few days ago that I'm half-Zentraedi. I understand why it was kept secret, but I now have so many doubts about who I am. I need the password to the lock box containing my classified birth documents."

"It's been so many years; I'm not sure if I can remember what the password was. What have you tried, so far?"

"Dates, family names, nicknames, my favorite toys; everything I thought they might pick for a password that I'd have to figure out on my own."

"Hmm... Family members... What family have you tried?"

"Mom, Dad, Scott, Marie, Janet, Karen, Dana's parents; I even tried our Zentraedi babysitters."

"Have you tried your mother's sisters?"

"Huh? I didn't know she had any. What were their names?"

"One was a big-shot in the E.B.S.I.S. Zentraedi forces, before they were nearly wiped out in the Battle of New Kinshasa. I doubt she'd use it, and I'd have to look it up to be sure what her name was. The other was fairly famous; her name was Tinya."

"Tinya? As in, 'The Ballad of McCloud & Tinya'?"

"That was her. And Daniel, God rest his soul, was Anatole's godson."

"No wonder Leonard banned the song from performance by or for Southern Cross personnel," Alex noted. "Kinda hits him below the belt."

"Uncle, you let me and Bowie learn that banned song, and knew of its connection to my family? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want you to overly concern yourself with it. I let you learn it BECAUSE of your connection to it, and someday I knew you'd find out that Tinya's series name was Marinoni, like your mother's. But, I didn't want you carrying that knowledge into the military like a cross to bear, or worse, a wrong to right. Between that, and the disappearance of a boy that was supposed to be his son, Anatole's life was a living hell in that period. He only realized in the last few years how much he was to blame for the events that led to all his suffering. Unfortunately, he's come to treat his command as a surrogate child, and has become ruthless and single-minded in protecting it, even if it means issuing quick orders that would lead to more casualties than a carefully-made plan of attack. Some of us who consider him a friend are worried he's developing an 'Ahab' complex. But, enough of parts of the past that are better left where they are; try the name."

Noel typed in T-I-N-Y-A into the keypad attached to the lock, and hit [enter]. There was a faint hiss as the vacuum seal unlocked.

"That was it! How can I thank you, Uncle?"

"Get back to your barracks. The Fifteenth will be attacking Zor's fortress in the morning, if all goes well."

The first document in the box released the contents to the first person on the "allowed usage" list (the one Alex had found on the computer) to open the box, and left it up to that person to reseal the box, or take possession of the documents, leaving it up to that person to decide whether to declassify them after study, or reclassify them accessible to additional people. Noel chose to take the documents, grant Dana and Alex official right to review them, and take them with her for further study. After she went over them back at the barracks, she'd decide whether resealing or declassification was the better option.

But, before they got back to the barracks, curiosity got the better of her, and she opened the packet of documents while they were in the military taxi heading back to the base. Alex saw tears come to her eyes as she looked at the old pictures included in the file. Then, as she read the medical documents, all the blood seemed to drain from her face, leaving her as pale as a corpse. Finally, she came to her birth certificate, and dropped the whole packet into the floor, shuddering.

"STOP! Stop the car!" she screamed, causing the driver to slam on the brakes. When the car skidded to a halt, she threw open the door and jumped out, running as fast as she could. Alex ran after her, telling the driver to wait for them, but couldn't find her in the same maze of buildings that, months before, Dana had went AWOL in after the fistfight with Marie Crystal's unit. Giving up for the moment, he returned to the taxi.

He ordered the taxi to continue to the barracks, planning on recruiting the rest of the squad to come look for her. He picked up the loose documents from the floor, and began examining them for the reason why Noel had suddenly lost control. On top, where Noel had left it, was the birth certificate.

"Parents: Shannon and Kayra Freeman; Date of Birth - December Twenty-Fifth, Twenty-sixteen. Twenty-sixteen?" This made Alex do a double take, as it made no sense. Confused, he looked into the other documents. Most of the rest of the packet were medical documents written Dr. Jean Grant, Bowie's mother. They chronicled the abnormally rapid development of Noel Freeman, from her advanced development at birth, on Christmas 2016, through the kidnapping in June of 2017, and a physical after her return in July. All the evidence claimed that, chronologically, Noel was not even thirteen, yet physically and emotionally, she was much older. Alex didn't want to believe it.

However, the remaining evidence in the pile left him with no choice but to believe it. Photos of Noel as a child, taken every week, her back to a measuring scale on the wall. Other photos showed her with family members. And the reversal of names on the birth certificate - Karen Noel Freeman - was yet another mystery, compounded by the fact that one of her babysitters, her "Aunt Karen", had exactly the same first and middle names.

"What's going on?" he muttered to himself, trying to come to grips with the impossibility of it all. All the while, he kept staring at the last photo from the pile; a photo from New Years Day 2017, showing a 4½-year old Dana holding a near-infant Noel.

**Chapter Ten:**

"Occasionally, I think about Noel, and the past we created for her. Eventually, she's going to find out her past is a lie, and it will undoubtedly hurt her. But, what will happen when she finds out the 'truth' behind the lie isn't exactly kosher, either? I have to find a way to tell her the truth myself, but how?"

-Diary of Lieutenant Karen Freeman, entry from second week after defeat of Invid at Karbarra..

"Alex, that's crazy! Noel can't be just thirteen;" Dana fumed. "We grew up together."

"Laugh this one off, Lieutenant Sterling." Alex shoved the New Years picture from the folder into Dana's hands, and waited for a response.

"This can't... be...but... but, I remember. This can't be happening! People don't age five years in five months!"

"But, she did age that way, and this IS happening. Finding out has shaken her up so bad, she's run away. And, can you blame her? But, if we spend the night looking for her, we'll be in no shape for the attack."

"I know. I can also tell you're not leaving her out there for the sake of the mission, though she would be a liability up there in the state she's in. You feel she's safer down here than with us."

Good call. Not only is she too shook up to fight right now, I'm not sure we'll be coming back from this. I mean, the thought of using ground mecha at an altitude of eighty kilometers scares me."

"Don't even talk like that; especially not in front of the others. When we get back, is there anything we can do for her?"

"Well, we can try hypno-regression techniques, to try to bring your childhood memories to the surface. If it works, we can use that to confirm or deny the documents."

"You got it, Alex. I just hope Noel doesn't face a court-martial for running off."

"Don't worry, they won't. I'll write up a medical leave for her tonight. And, if they do try something, we can always argue that she's underage, and get her a general discharge."

"Funny, Alex; real funny. How come you're not worried about her?"

"I am; I just know that the whole situation's out of my hands right now. My duty is with the 15th. Besides, she's safer AWOL than with us, remember?"

The mission had been on the verge of failure, when a stray shot from Dana caused an eruption of energy that led them to their goal. Of course, while she and Louie were working on the best method of wrecking the gravitic system, the rest of the squadron was stuck with the job of covering them.

Alex was having a hard time of it, holding an end of one of the defensive lines. He managed to take out four Bioroids, before a lucky shot blew the EU-11 out of his hands, damaging it beyond use. He took out several more, firing the tank's rotary cannon by extending it out of its arm shield, but it ran out of ammo after only three minutes. As the tank gun had been disabled to install the single missile intended for use on the power grid, he was left with only one option.

His choice of target was made simpler by Dana, who called out her team's success in blowing the grid, ordering everyone to jump off the slowly falling ship. Alex targeted a group of three Bioroids between himself and the ship's side, and fired. The Bioroids disappeared in a ball of fire and secondary explosions, and he started running toward it before the explosions fully subsided. As he neared the side, he saw that Dana was right beside him, and they were the last two off. Some of the others did stunts as they leaped for relative safety, so Alex took a more silly variation on this idea, and had his Battloid "hold its nose" as it dove off, as if into water.

A shuttle quickly flew in after them, and they switched modes and used their mecha's hover thrusters to board it. As they rode back down to earth, they watched the reports on the ship they'd damaged, noting that it still had some flight capability as it didn't fall as much as it drifted down on backup systems. It passed over Monument on the way down, crashing in the Black Hills. A couple of jokes were made about their liability if it HADN'T missed Monument, but neither Alex nor Dana took them well, seeing how Noel was still missing somewhere in the city. The only delay to their search for her would be their post-mission debriefing session.

It was near sunset when they reached Monument Park. Contrary to the belief of many of the town's younger generation, the city was not named for the monuments in the park. Monument City was named for Mount Rushmore, about 100 kilometers away, and near the crash site of the Masters' ship. The choice of the name was from the movement of the city towards the mountains, instead of rebuilding on the ruins of Rapid City, and "New Rapid City" was a bit too convoluted for casual use, even in 2012. The monuments in the park weren't even built until 2014, almost three years after the founding of the city, and two after the renaming.

There were two major monuments in the park, standing on opposite sides of a plaza made of bricks laid in a mosaic pattern to depict the old United Nations flag. The first monument was the Macross Memorial, listing those who sacrificed their lives in the SDF-1's active service, from the ill-fated launch ceremony to the battle with Dolza. It was an exact replica of the one that used to stand on the shore of the SDF-1's crater lake, from the names inscribed on the granite slabs taken from the Black Hills, to the statues of Fokker, Kramer and other fallen aces of the war. The second was a monument to those who died in the SDF-1's final battle, topped by statues of the fallen bridge crew. They found Noel sitting on the steps of the former, staring at the statues of the latter, as if seeking guidance from them.

"Noel?"

"A... Alex? Stay away from me; you'll only get in trouble."

"Don't say that; it's not true. Dana and I showed General Emerson the documents, and he cleared you to return to the squadron."

"It's not that. We shouldn't be together; you're almost twice my age!"

"I don't care! And neither does Dana, Rolf, or anyone else. It doesn't matter that your thirteenth birthday isn't for a week; physically, emotionally, and legally, you'll be seventeen, and that's what matters. I love you for what you are; nothing could change that."

"R... Really?"

"Really. Now, come back to the barracks with me. Dana's waiting for us in a jeep by the gate. You gave us all a worry." He picked her up in his arms, and kissed her. "Don't ever leave me again, you hear?"

"I won't; I promise."

He let her down near the gate, and they stood there, and kissed again. They were there quite a while, before they were interrupted by Dana.

"Hey, you two, break it off! The last time two people kissed in a park like that, I was born nine months later! You can waste time in the barracks doing that."

"We're coming, Dana."

Hand in hand, Alex and Noel walked to the jeep.

"We were strangers, starting out on a journey

Never dreaming what we'd have to go through

Now here we are, and I'm suddenly standing

At the beginning with you."

- Donna Lewis, "At the Beginning"; from the movie Anastasia


	11. Book Three, Part Ten

**Part Ten: Who Made Who**

**Chapter One:**

"I see life, and it's passing right before my eyes;

and the past is the past, don't regret it -

Time to realize...

I need to walk on the wire, just to catch my breath;

I don't know how or where, but I'm going -

It's all that I have left"

Marietta - "Destination Unknown", from the Top Gun soundtrack

**6 January 2030**

**From ****The Collected Journals of Alex Tyler:**

"We had already attacked the Masters' ship twice in the last three weeks; first when we shot it down, and ten days later as a follow up attack. Now, High Command had come up with the craziest idea we'd ever heard. They wanted to blow a hole in the craft (which had been unbreachable by conventional means), and send us through the resulting hole. I'm not sure if we could have prevented a lynching, had Leonard been actually present when the order was given to us. At least we'd been able to finally confirm what, up to now, had been rumor. The 'aliens' were the Robotech Masters of Tyrol, creators of the Zentraedi. The brass probably knew it months ago, but never would confirm or deny it till now.

"At least, they had given us a day to prepare for the mission, which Dana utilized by giving us "Cinderella Passes", which required us to be back before midnight. Noel and I went into town to see a friend of Bowie's perform. George is a decent pianist, but a lousy vocalist, so Noel and I volunteered to help him out on a few pieces. Noel sang "Valentine", dedicating it to me (causing me to blush visibly). I borrowed a sax, and we next performed "Only your friend", and unrecorded Minmei song Noel had found as a teenager in her music teacher's studio. We got a standing ovation, and we were soaking it up when we realized it was 2340, and I had to drive like a maniac to get us back in time.

"While we had no trouble in town, Bowie had gone to one of the off-limits areas, and got caught. As a result, he would spend the night in lockup, while the rest of us spent the night worrying about the coming fight. In a way, it was for the best, as he'd been acting kinda spacey in combat. I think the mounting death toll among his teammates and academy classmates was starting to take it's toll on him. For once, Dana did the right thing, and didn't try to cover for him, and let him go to detention - a move that shocked even Nova, who had evidently been looking to get some thing or favor from Dana in trade for Bowie's release.

"The night in solitary must have done Bowie some good, as Emerson saw fit to spring him in the morning. Bowie pulled into formation just as we set up for our attack with a much better attitude than been showing lately, with him there we had our largest force yet, eighteen hovertanks. If enough of us survived, half our enlisted personnel would become the core of a new squadron and some Academy rookie's problem.

"The air forces were actually holding their own, for once, as the suppression fire prevented the enemy Bioroids from mass launching and turning the tables. We waited on the hillside, watching the massed gunfire, as the RPV loaded with explosives came flying in NOE and slammed into a large hatch cover. This was our cue to rush the resulting hole.

"We actually made it into the ship without casualties, but we lost two rookies and the tank of a third when we ran into the Bioroid response team sent to cover the breach. We put Simon into the passenger seat of Jordan's tank, and ordered Jordan and Tensen back out of the ship, while the rest of us continued inward.

"Half-way down the length of the ship, the tunnel divided, yet we hadn't seen any doorways. Angie took his squad to the left, while Dana led the rest of us to the right. A few hundred meters later, we hit another fork, and Dana sent Sean and his team left there, Keeping us closer to the interior of the ship. It was about a minute later when I used that well-worn line to Dana, not realizing how prophetic it was..."

"Dana, I've got a bad feeling about this. I think we've got ourselves in a trap. Why are there no doors and no people?"

"The doors are probably well concealed. But our outside comm frequencies just went down; I can't reach the other teams, either. You may be right."

"Dana, he IS right; look!" Noel exclaimed, pointing to the blast doors that were beginning to descend from the ceiling.

"HIT IT!" Dana screamed. "Full Power!"

"Damn it, now I KNOW I've seen this movie before."

"Shut up and drive, Alex!"

"Watch out!" Noel threw her Hovertank into a skid stop as the farthest wall dropped quicker than the rest. The others did so as well, putting all of them into one space between the walls.

"That wasn't the movie," Dana smirked. "Any ideas?"

"The doors appear to be blast resistant alloys," Louis commented. "However, the walls do not."

"Good idea, Louie." Dana swung her tank around 90 degrees, and fired. A section of the wall disappeared with a satisfying boom, revealing the room beyond. "Okay guys, let's see what's behind door number three."

The room was filled with what appeared to be part of the ship's life support system. A faint tonal melody seemed to echo from the ventilation ducts, though none of them could identify what kind of instrument would make those kinds of tones. They were discussing attempting to trace the sound when Louis found a hidden door by falling through it, trying to lean on the wall.

"Louie, are you okay?"

"I think so." Louie stood up looking at his surroundings. "Check this place out!" The room he'd found was filled with machines, turning out android parts. "Are you sure that Bioroid pilot you saw in the ruins was human?"

"Definite, Louie;" Alex replied. "These parts are fairly lifelike, but I'm a doctor. I know natural movements and reflexes when I see them. More than likely these are slave units for the human elite. What do you think Bowie?" Bowie didn't answer. "Bowie? Where did he go?"

"I don't know," Dana replied. "He was here a minute ago."

"He probably found another door," Alex commented, "He'll let us know if he's in trouble."

"I hope so," Noel replied uneasily. "Alex, there's something familiar about that music. It's almost as if I recognize it but not quite."

"Noel, I feel the same way," Dana added "What could it be?"

"Frankly, ladies I don't know. We need to get moving, and find Bowie before he gets into trouble."

Suddenly the music they had been hearing went dissonant, then stopped.

"Alex, the music stopped! Somehow, I knew it's not supposed to do that!"

"Maybe Bowie found its source," Dana guessed, not knowing the truth within her statement. "Alex, set Bowie's auto-destruct, and we'll move out through the main hatch. The last thing we need is for one of them to get one of our tanks intact to study."

Alex did what he was told, and they rode out into the interior corridor. He could only wonder what would happen when the tank he left behind blew sky high; he just hoped Bowie wasn't near it when it happened.

**Chapter Two:**

"In my heart, I feel the heat

of something burning deep inside of me

I'll be the man I never thought I'd be

Now that I've found you."

Three Dog Night - "In My Heart",

from Eve Tokamatsuri's unfinished rock opera, Underground.

"A harp of light, huh?" Alex asked Bowie, for confirmation of his strange story. "Maybe we can get her to join our band."

"Alex, stop encouraging him!" Dana snapped, driving through the ship-city's back alleys.

"Really, Dana. Whether dream, android or alien, she's definitely had an effect on him. I happen to think she's real, not a figment of his imagination."

"Dana, stop the tank! I just saw her!"

"Are you certain it's her, Bowie?"

"I'm positive - she's one of a kind! I'd know her any-" Suddenly, it was apparent she wasn't, as an identical girl walked up to her. "What? It can't be! I'm seeing double!"

"Everybody here is either twins or triplets," Louie observed. "They must be clones."

"But, what were the androids for?" Noel asked.

"I think I know," Alex replied, pointing at the three soldiers in sealed armor, racing toward them.

"Don't make a move!" one droned. "We've got you covered!"

"See; there's that bad movie dialogue I told you about," Bowie noted.

"They must have learned English from our broadcasts;" Alex theorized, waiting for Dana to give the order to deal with the guards. "Most likely, from the late, late show. Do we shoot it out with them?"

"No," Dana replied. "If we do, we'll end up injuring a lot of civilians. We'll just have to make a run for it. GO!"

They took off at Dana's mark, only to have the Terminators open fire on them, through the crowd.

"Dana, they're shooting at us!" Bowie called out from where he was watching their rear from Dana's back seat. "They don't seem to care how many of the clones get killed!"

Alex took a quick look over his shoulders, and saw Bowie was right. At least a half-dozen civilians had been hit by shots meant for the hovertankers, yet it didn't phase the alien guards. "Let's get out of here before we get anyone else killed."

They raced down the next corridor they found, only to find they were back at what appeared to be the first junction, that they'd designated as their rendezvous point. Sean's squad was already there, bored to tears from the looks of things. Dana and Bowie began relating Alpha Team's discoveries, only to overload Sean very quickly as they described everything simultaneously. Alex was about to interrupt, when he noticed something caught in Bowie's armor, in the helmet seal ring.

"Excuse me, Bowie, but could you hold still for a second?"

"What for?" Bowie inquired, but didn't think twice about complying.

"There;" Alex said, grabbing the object with tweezers from his specimen kit he'd brought along. "I'll give this back to you when I'm done with it."

"What is 'it'?"

"A little souvenir from your girlfriend." Alex held up the long green hair so all could see, before putting it into a specimen bag and sealing it in the kit.

"Here comes Dante, Lieutenant," Louie called out, distracting them from the discovery of the hair.

"Sorry we're late, Lieutenant. Road disappeared on us, then we were attacked by the goon squad. Then, as suddenly as it started, they left us alone. We tried to find Road at that poi-"

Without warning, the floor underneath them disappeared, and the squadron fell into darkness.

**Chapter Three:**

"One thing we never found out: were all the apparent thefts of _Star Wars_ plot devices on the initial penetration just coincidence, or did the Masters get a copy of the movie during the 'Andrews Incident', and were depraved enough to subject us to it?"

- Alex Tyler, 2037 symposium on Tyrolean culture under the Masters.

"Is everybody okay?" Dana called out into the darkness. One by one, everyone answered, although how everyone survived the fall was anybody's guess.

"How did we make such a soft landing?" Noel asked from her cockpit. "We seemed to fall a long time before we hit this... this..."

"Garbage, Noel?" Cranston finished, fishing himself out of the refuse. "I've pulled enough KP to recognize that smell anywhere."

"Garbage?" Alex was getting a little nervous, considering what they'd already faced. "I've got a really bad feeling about this..."

"Cut that out, Ham!" Kuri, one of Alex's old classmates punned, referring to Alex's academy nickname, coming from his namesake in the 'V' TV series, as well as his penchant for quoting his favorite movies. "You might give them ideas - uh-oh..." Grinding noises came from overhead.

"You've done it now, Alex;" Xavez moaned. "Evidently, they've seen _**Star Wars**_ too!"

Dana turned on her tank's running lights. "Everyone still in their tanks - hit your lights! Let's see if we can find a way out."

Alex and Noel turned on their lights, but the walls were shown to be seamless.

"It's even worse than we thought," Dana commented, then yelled at the ceiling. "Don't you know you schmucks were supposed to leave us a maintenance hatch?" She then transformed her tank into its howitzer mode. "Stand back, everybody. I'm gonna blast us out of here."

"Lieutenant, don't!" Louie called out. "The walls are made out of the same stuff as the blast doors. Remember, that didn't work in the movie, either."

"Then come up with a better idea." She aimed her ion gun at the far wall, at a slight down angle.

"Shit!" Louie became one with the garbage, and seeing this, the others followed suit.

"Hit the deck!" Alex yelled, ducking inside his own cockpit, as did Noel.

As expected, due to the magnetic seal on the walls, the blast of polarized ions bounced several times, finally impacting the garbage underneath Dana's tank.

"Oh, God, she blew herself up!" Sean guessed, looking at the hole where she had been.

"I told her..."

From the depths of the hole, Dana made it clear that the reports of her demise were greatly exaggerated. "Hey, guys! I'm down here!"

Alex and Noel moved their tanks to illuminate the hole, where Dana and several others were now sitting in a large, possibly ceremonial, chamber 15 meters below. "Get yourselves and your tanks down here before you're squashed!"

Ten minutes later, after an attempt by some sort of security system to kill Dana resulted instead in the destruction of the equipment that had been jamming their radio, the squadron was headed back to the exit. Getting out would prove much more difficult than their entrance, as a gauntlet of Bioroids had gathered to block their way. Finally, the hole they'd helped make hove into view.

"Let's get out of here!"

"Right behind you, Lieutenant," Angie replied snappily, from her left wing position.

"What's that on the floor?" Dana asked, then was horrified to recognize it as the bodies of two of her team. "It's Simon and Jordan!"

"It's too late for them, Dana;" Alex yelled back, acting on his thermal scanner that the bodies were cooling too fast to be only wounded. "I wonder what happened to Tensen; I hope he made it out."

"Dana, look out!" Angie called out, uncharacteristically calling his commander by her first name. The reason for his warning was a green Bioroid, jumping into her path.

In response, Dana shifted to Battloid mode, working into a run - but not drawing a weapon.

"Dana, what are you doing? You can't be taking him on unarmed!"

"Shut up, Bowie; I hate back seat drivers!"

The Bioroid tried to jump out of the way, but Dana was quicker, doing a move that was half grab, half tackle, snatching it out of the air and carrying it back into the sunlight. Whether it was as a prisoner or as a hostage, the rest of the squadron could only guess, but the other Bioroids let them go after Dana captured her prize.

**From ****The Collected Journals of Alex Tyler:**

"None of us could sleep well that night, as we were too keyed up by what had happened during the day. I had kept the hair I'd found on Bowie, instead of turning it over to the jerks in research. I knew that they'd already worked on dead Bioroid pilots, so one hair from a civilian XT wasn't going to cause a furor ... or would it?

"By morning, the only thing I had determined about the hair was that it wasn't Noel's, who's hair was a slightly different shade of green than Bowie's 'mystery girl.' However, there were more similarities than differences, so I decided I'd grab a few musty old reports from the labs when we went to see the Bioroid Dana had bagged on the way out of the ship. It took almost a week, but we finally got the chance.

"It seemed like we were stepping into a giant version of a med school dissection theater when we walked into Beckett's lab, as guests of General Emerson. Louie and Becket fit together well, pointing out different things about the Bioroid, until Louie sort of took over for a while.

"Dana about lost it when Colonel Green said that, due to Louie and Beckett's findings, shooting the cockpit area would be S.O.P. for fighting Bioroids, She had a point; we had seen the humanity of the 'aliens' first-hand, when they were killed by the indiscriminate fire of the armored 'Terminators' aboard the ship. During the argument, I slipped away and found what I needed; theoretical work by Lang and Exedore that I knew of, but had never seen before, (thanks to Zand sealing access to them by anyone not part of his clique). I plugged in my palmtop to the console, ran Louie's block-breaker program, and sent the files back to my computer in the barracks by cellular modem. I rejoined the others as Emerson and Dana left for the command center, slipped the palmtop to Louie then ran to catch up with Dana. I didn't want to miss the fireworks.

"Byron was an incompetent ass as an instructor in peacetime, and was even more so in war. I let him and Leonard continue, until Dana interrupted...

("[ ]" quotes from transcript of briefing)

Dana: ["... I believe we're dealing with a race of living beings - not a soulless army of machines!"]

Green: ["My observations are completely documented. What proof do you have to back up this absurd position?"]

"Dana started to say something stupid, before I stood up and pushed her back into her seat. I started my monologue...

Alex: ["Respectfully, sirs, the Lieutenant is right! I managed to get a hair sample from one of the civilians on the ship, and in structure and genetics it is closer to humans than Zentraedi. Besides, what use would a civilian populace be if they were androids? If you won't accept eyewitness testimony, then you're all the biggest group of fools since the UEDC, and if you're not going to listen to reason, there's no use for Lieutenant Sterling or me to stay here. Goodbye!"]

I grabbed Dana by the arm, pulled her to her feet, and half-dragged her out behind me. After we left, I found that Emerson had took up where I left off with the UEDC parallel, and came to the conclusion that the comparison was accurate, at least in the comparison of people like Green to the politicos and armchair warriors that totally misread the Zentraedi."

Dana and Alex caught up with the rest of the 15th not long after Louie, who had spent most of the afternoon in the lab. They told the others about the meeting, then Louie told them about the apparent control device found in the pilot and that it supported a remote control hypothesis.

"That's impossible, Louie. The human body is too sophisticated to be controlled in combat that way. The pilot may have some of his targeting decisions made that way, and it might be a way of jacking in some sort of battlefield awareness and tactical knowledge. But, there's no way for that many Bioroids to be controlled your way at the same time. Louie, use your head! These are protoculture mecha; without a sentient being at direct control of the mecha, it would be slower than an RDF MAC II . The problems is you're a mechanic, not a doctor, Bonehead." Half the squad stifled giggles, catching the twisted version of the sixty year old Star Trek cliche. "I know the evidence you have points my way as easily as yours."

"You might have something, but or the majority it wouldn't make any difference. Outside their Bioroids the few pilots that lived didn't live long, and were vegetables outside the Bioroid."

"Then it's up to us to put them out of that un-life." Angie said. "Even the enemy shouldn't be done that way; it's inhuman."

"But, remember guys; the civilian and leader types aren't zombies. We need to treat them as we'd treat a purely terrestrial enemy."

Dana started to put in her two cents worth, when the air raid warnings went off. Soon, it became apparent that the Bioroids were on a specimen-gathering mission, engaging in little combat while capturing civilians. The squadron members then had to make a choice: try not to shoot the Bioroids with live prisoners, or to shoot them anyway, to prevent the human from falling into Tyrolean hands. Most chose the former, even before Dana made it an order. Strangely, unlike previous missions, the Bioroids made an active effort to recover their wounded mecha, instead of self-destructing them.

After the attack was over, Alex, Dana, Angie, Sean and Louie got together privately in Dana's office to discuss this latest turn of events, out of earshot of the rank-and-file.

Dana began the meeting with the question "Okay, guys; you saw what happened out there... Got any ideas as to why?"

"Lieutenant, maybe they're starting to run low on equipment," Louie suggested.

"Louie, then why only recover the Bioroids with living pilots? There were quite a few that we'd decapped that were undamaged otherwise." Alex paused, then continued. "What if it's not equipment, but manpower that they're running short on?"

Angie got a far-off look, then brought up something they really didn't want to consider. "Lieutenants, we know the Masters were able to program the Zentraedi. What if they have, or are looking for, a way to reprogram humans for their use?"

Everyone went silent, until Alex took the thought a step further. "Then, the prisoners aren't hostages or lab specimens, but potential recruits, and we might end up having to kill them or be killed."

"Then, we'll have to be even more careful, and pray we're wrong." Dana sighed, and stood up. "Not a word of this to anyone. Alex and I will bring it up to General Emerson, as soon as we can get a meeting with him again. Considering our exit of the staff meeting, we may not be that welcome. Okay, then; let's call it a night."

**Chapter Four:**

"The Zentraedi were more than an army; they were also the experimental test group for the Masters' eugenics program. It was an extremely ambitious project, and was left incomplete by the destruction of the Main Fleet in 2011. However, the Masters put what they had learned to use in 2030, in anticipation of a victory that never came." - Alex Tyler, in Kinship

**10 February 2030**

Alex settled back in his "study chair", as he liked to call the overstuffed recliner he had inherited from Hikaru, paging through tonight's batch of the research files he'd lifted from the SPOOK computer in Beckett's lab. The files were even more detailed than he imagined, going into areas that, publicly, were supposed to be great unsolved mysteries about the relationship between the Zentraedi and their creators. It had taken him a month to read into them this far.

The information was taken from a computer found in the original captain's quarters aboard the SDF-1 - as in, the TYROLEAN captain - in 2003. The computer appeared to be not only a science research station, but also capable of operating the ship on its own, so it was removed from the ship for safety reasons. It was taken to a research facility in Japan, where it survived Dolza's attack by virtue of the facility being located far underground.

The files in tonight's batch were spotty, with many phrases guessed at, even with Exedore's help. But what was translated gave insight into the Tyrolean mind set under the Masters. The first generation of Zentraedi were unique beings; several hundred persons assembled genetically from the ground up. Exedore and Breetai were the only two survivors of that generation, after the battle with Dolza. Ironically, Exedore, Dolza and Breetai were the three oldest of them all, and had been the only surviving Zentraedi in either fleet to have walked the SDF-1's corridors under its original commander.

But, those original Zentraedi were only the first part of the Masters' plan. The next involved massive screening of the population, isolating that part that had the right combination of good genetic structure and exceptional mental and/or physical attributes. Only the highest tiers of their society were exempted, as they were to be made immortal through protoculture treatments. Those belonging to neither group were sterilized, and given jobs of no importance, to serve in till their deaths. This left 50,000 viable Tyroleans, and cell samples were taken from each, undifferentiated, multiplied, and reformed into sex cells. Then, over the next decade, a base clone template was created from each possible male/female pairing. These were the original 625 million Zentraedi that the fleets' billions were cloned from.

As the initial wars of conquest began, specific lines of clones began to distinguish themselves in combat. One percent showed excellence beyond all expectations, and their lines were further modified for greater size and strength, to go with their intelligence and cunning. The new clones from these lines were rationed accordingly, and put in positions to work their way up to command status, becoming the captains of the ships and fleets of the new Zentraedi armada. They were kept common enough for each ship to have a handful in various stages of training for command, but rare enough to where they would be unable to turn their forces back against their masters.

The rest of the Zentraedi eventually stratified into two categories; the competent and the cannon fodder. The former had opportunity to rise in the ranks, to join the elite on personal merit. The latter were doomed for an expected short life in a Regult. At the time of Zor's death, those whose profiles were below the cut-off level were effectively banned from being reproduced, with any new personnel expected to be made from the 'middle class' of Zentraedi. Seventy percent of the males and ninety percent of the females, failed to make the cut. By the time Dolza reached Earth, these Zentraedi had gone from being 75% of the fleet to only 40%, and most of those were male, after several costly battles involving females.

As for the middle class qualifiers, different augmentation routes were taken for the different sexes. Males were given lesser versions of the command alterations. Females, whose intuition and agility proved to be measurably higher than the males, were given further intelligence and agility boosts, and trained primarily as fighter and armor pilots. However, the expense of the female's craft limited their creation, to where only 10% of the fleet was female by the time of its destruction.

As for the cell donors, the more successful Zentraedi lines born of a person's genetics, the higher status the person gained in the society - at least up to the point where Zor's records stopped. Alex couldn't believe some of the things mentioned in the notes, especially concerning the SDF-1's Tyrolean commander. These records all clearly showed that the Masters even cloned their own people, and that Zor was one of them, albeit a renegade trying to fight their despotism. Yet, when a fleet shows up, with one of its most visible officers named Zor, looking almost identical to the Zor in the records, the Southern Cross Command seemed to go out of its way to try NOT to connect the newest enemy to the Robotech Masters initially.

A curious appendage to one of the files stood out - a message, dismissed by the high command as a space-going Malcontent hoax. It was received almost five years after the SDF-3 launch, but was supposed to be one sent shortly after its arrival, claiming the Masters were not on Tyrol anymore.

The next file stood out even more. Titled "The Role of 'Three' in Protoculture Studies," it mentioned how three genetically related Zentraedi tended to perform better in certain tests than three non-related ones with marked higher scores individually. It stated that evidence indicated that the Masters had discovered this, and had been planning to introduce triplet clones in their own society. HOW LONG HAD RESEARCH KNOWN? Alex seethed inside. And how much more were they still hiding? A final note in the thesis indicated that the scientist class were not to be tri-cloned, but to be made virtually immortal by anti-aging treatments made from protoculture.

Then, he started going into hard data using the computer in the private lab he and Louie had set up in Sean's old room. The first section was the database of tested Zentraedi cross-referenced with each other to try to determine parentage, then cross-referenced again with the fleet genetics data to narrow down the fields. The end result was a table of male and female donors, represented by four digit numbers in hexadecimal; females with the first digit 0 through 7, males with 8 through F. As more and more Zentraedi were tested, looking for family, the more accurate the data became. For instance, Miriya Sterling was a 1269/BF29. Noel's mother wasn't listed, so he checked the registry for others in her series. A Lyssa Marinoni was found, who died in the Brasilia Massacre, and was believed for three years to have been Tinya, until Tinya was found in the assault on the Scavengers base camp, dead in the arms of Daniel McCloud, her former lover. He called up Lyssa's data, and about fell out of his chair when it came up: 1269/BDAF.

Dana and Noel had always been best friends, growing up together, learning together, playing together. They considered each other as cousins, if not sisters. Now, the evidence was in; they really were cousins, sharing the same genetic grandmother.

"Ho - ly Cow!"

"Huh? You go Hindu on me or something?" Noel asked from where she had walked in, unseen, causing Alex to complete the fall to the floor by startling him again.

"Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"Sorry about that. What did you find?"

"This is big, and it concerns you and Dana. Get her in here! And I think you both need to be sitting down to hear this."

"Hear what?" Dana asked, walking into the ersatz lab. "I thought you were going to study that hair from Bowie's alien 'girlfriend'?"

"I'm working on it, Dana; but I'm going through all the other data first, and I came across something interesting. According the Zentraedi genetic records, your mother and Noel's were half-sisters. In other words, you really are cousins, and your mothers never knew."

"Cousins, huh? I knew we were close, but that puts on a whole spin on things."

"This information is great; I wonder how come my classmates and I didn't have access to it? The fact that this stuff even existed was hidden from us."

"I don't know why, either. But, get rid of it when you're through. The last thing we need is to have you get caught with it. Comprende, senor?"

"Si." the girls left the room, leaving Alex alone with the tangle of computer and science equipment. He started to warm up the sequencer, but found out that he was getting red lights on some of the sensors, and would have to acquire replacements somehow. So, he shifted his attention to an encoded document from the SDF-1 captain's quarters - one that had never been decoded by Lang. All the punctuation was there, but the letters themselves were jumbled.

Alex looked for patterns, but could not see any, at first. Then, it struck him. The file was located in a databank full of genetic records. What if one of the genetic codes was the key? The Tyrolean alphabet was unlike the Zentraedi one, for security reasons, but there was a one-for-one correspondence between the symbols, with the numbers actually shared. Strangely, the encoded document had both alphabets's characters.

Both alphabets had 27 characters; with the digits, that was a total of 64 characters. This seemed too much of a coincidence, as DNA has four possible pairings of its codes, and three pairings per twist. Unlike Terran science, which recorded the pairings in groups of three, Tyrolean science treated each trio of pairs as one unit, with 64 possible combinations. Alex quickly typed a program that would work as a simple addition or subtraction code, taking the first line of the encoded file, then either adding or subtracting each genetic code from the corresponding character in the message. Complicating matters was, if this was the key, determining the proper order of the positions of the two alphabets and the digits in the key. To be safe, he used all six possible orientations, and their reverses. The down side of this was that 24 possible translations would result per key tried, or millions of combinations in all; none of which might be valid.

He then added a filter that reset the Tyrolean letters to Zentraedi ones to the process, to enable better translation. Finally, each line would have their words ran through a spell checker set up with the entire Zentraedi dictionary, as well as any Tyrolean words that could be extracted from the other documents, including the name Zor. All the ones that passed would be put into a file with their key. Three more files would hold all the ones with one, two or three failed words, in case the dictionary was not thorough enough. He started the programs and went to bed.

He was awakened by his alarm clock, seven hours later. He showered, shaved and dressed, before stepping through the former closets that now formed the connector between his room and the lab. The computer was sitting idle, having finished the comparisons during the night. He opened up the file for no failures, expecting to find nothing, or nothing but garbage; the comparisons had been set for spelling, not grammar. Four lines had passed the test, so he fed them through the translation program, to be converted and restructured into English grammar patterns, if patterns existed in the original. The first line was garbage; the second was likewise. The fourth differed from the second by only one word, which would have made no difference in the translation, so he didn't even bother testing it. The third line, however, translated perfectly -

"To those to whom I send this ship, I send my story - Zor."

Alex looked to where the decoding method was recorded, to start the decoding of the entire message. He typed the code and method, then stopped before he hit "Enter", realizing he KNEW which code it was. The code was for cell donor 1269 - Dana and Noel's genetic grandmother. He shook off a severe case of the willies, and started the program.

Alex spent the rest of the day reading the combination autobiography and ship's log, leaving the work of locating the parts for the DNA scanner to Louie, and getting all his meals brought to his room by a perplexed Noel.

The story began with a recap of the events preceding the launch of the SDF-1. Zor had returned to Tyrol from deep space, after he had been brainwashed and sent there to rape the world of a race he had befriended; the race that had given him the secrets of Protoculture. The Masters then announced their plans, confirming the little info the other records had provided. Zor and a number of others were given treatments that would make them effectively immortal, as long as they continued the treatments. Ironically, many of those who were given the treatments were Zor's allies in opposing the Masters' plan, being survivors of the purge that had occurred during Zor's absence from the home world, including his lover. Only Zor escaped when their plot was exposed, his lover dying in his arms.

The Masters attempted to brainwash him again, but he managed to fake the effects of it. They then had him design a ship, which was to be used to further cement their power. That ship was the SDF-1. He followed the letter of his orders in the design, but only to sow instead the seeds of foment and rebellion among the subject races, whom he plotted with privately against their common foe. He went from world to world, seeding them with the source of Protoculture, but not the means to use it.

The log also detailed his attempts to reconstruct his dead lover. The Masters would not give him the cell samples he needed, though, instead incorporating her into the Zentraedi project. After a failed attempt to reconstruct her genome from scratch, he tried to recreate her electronically, using the android he'd created for the ship's AI to use as a mobile unit, and the brain scan taken by the Masters in their investigation of the plot against them. That attempt failed as well.

The log ended, with Zor making what he knew would be his last entry...

"Those I wronged come over closer. I am sure that they will catch us, before the day is done, though I have managed to conceal this fact from even Dolza. The encoding of this message is the means to succeed, where I failed. If you defeat the Zentraedi, as my visions seem to indicate you will, please use her children to recreate her. I would ask the same of me, but I know that will be impossible. I was never part of the project, and never will be. Instead, the will treat me as their tool, in numerous clonings, until I can be cloned no more. I am left to wonder how many deaths I will feel after this one, before the eternal peace finally does come."

Alex reclined back, to collect his thoughts. The strangest thing about the entire log, save Zor's and the Zentraedi, were replaced by pronouns, as if to protect those he might have contacted. He did it too well; even his lover's name, and that of the ship's computer, were deleted, though the information in the log indicated the computer's persona was female. And, what of this strange recurrence of the fiancée's genetics? Alex felt extremely uncomfortable with the idea that it was all a coincidence, but didn't like the alternative any better. A quote from a famous scientist came to mind. "God not only plays dice with the universe, he sometimes throws the dice to where they cannot be seen." Alex was beginning to think someone had loaded the dice.

**Chapter Five:**

"Well, even the brightest star won't shine forever..."

- The Alan Parsons Project, "Prime Time"

**14-15 April, 2030**

**From the diary of Noel Freeman:**

"I've got to put this down on paper... The last two days have been too much to leave out, and I've got to sort this all out anyway, so maybe I can do it here.

"I knew George Sullivan fairly well; Bowie, Alex and I had performed with him every Tuesday night that we weren't doing something military. George would play piano for us on the pieces where Bowie played guitar. While he was a competent pianist (Bowie's better, but he can't play both instruments at the same time), George's own act was a nightmare to endure, as he often covered Minmei tunes - BADLY. But, yesterday, we discovered a side of him, that we never expected. A side which would cost him his life, helping us.

"He was always asking Alex about how our missions had gone, sometimes asking more than even Dana's superiors did in her debriefings. We figured he was a hobbyist; one of those armchair generals with their own crackpot ideas on how the enemy thought. Plus, he showed the signs of grieving for someone, and a lot of the hobbyists got started down that road while looking for revenge, or meaning in the death of someone they loved. So, we were surprised when George and Dana seemed to show interest in each other. Alex and I left after the show, and we expected Dana and Bowie to follow right behind - but only Bowie showed up. Dana had gone back to see George.

"She finally showed up, right as we were getting worried about her. The squad had been ordered to go bother the Masters while they recovered their downed ship, which has been sitting outside town for the last four months. I say bother, because even Uncle Rolf knew there was no way to STOP the recovery, short of divine intervention. Even with footage from orbit of the rehearsals of the recovery operation, taken from cameras hid in old Zentraedi wreckage in space, no one in the High Command had any ideas on how to prevent the recovery. Anyway, Dana came in with a crazy story about having an informant in the GMP. Some of us immediately thought of Nova, but we quickly threw that out, as Lt. Satori is too uptight about useful information to risk a prison term to help a bunch of lowlifes like us. Besides, Dana hinted that the informant was from the part of the GMP focused on independently studying alien behavior and technology, as an alternative from being dependent on Robotech Research and their biased data.

"Early the next morning, as the Masters began their descent, Dana disappeared. The only one who had any idea where she was heading was Bowie, who said she'd asked where George lived. This blew all our minds; surely she wasn't going to abandon us and her career for a cheap rendezvous with a third-rate lounge singer? She left a note, telling Alex to take the squadron in, but to wait for her to arrive with backup.

"When we reached the fallen ship, the air was thick with Bioroids. We knocked so many of them out of the air that we lost track, but our weapons were useless against the ship itself. Meanwhile, we could now see the other fortress, descending to retrieve the fallen one. Suddenly, Dana appeared, with George in the back seat of her tank. None of us could figure out why she had brought a civilian into the battle, though it soon became apparent that George was working with a computer terminal; one, on closer look, had the markings of the GMP Scientific Intelligence Branch. George was an intelligence analyst, who had been moonlighting as a lounge singer - and we had never suspected a thing.

"Then, to our horror, Dana was forced into executing a maneuver that sent George flying from the mecha; instead of securing himself, he'd strapped down the computer. A Bioroid made a perfect catch, only to be shot by Sean, who had no idea that the Bioroid had a prisoner. The crippled Bioroid then clipped Marie Crystal's Logan, as she too had been on an attack run on it. Marie was knocked into a violent spin, and was going to crash; probably fatally. Sean reacted quickly, possibly out of guilt, switched to Battloid, and made a leaping catch to stop the crash from happening, though both mecha and Marie will have some serious down time before seeing service again. The Bioroid tried to limp away, but the reactor in its hovercraft went critical, incinerating both it and George, who was probably already dead from the multiple impacts.

"I then saw Angie take a bad hit, and he was thrown clear of his mangled hovertank, somehow. I started over to cover him, when the Bioroid leader, Zor, saw him too. I started to shoot at the Bioroid, that I recognized from the repaired damage that Dana had inflicted in previous fights. Only, I never got the chance, as the descending fortress (?) shot him down, his telepathic scream echoing in our heads. Angie and I were confused; we had just seen the enemy ship shoot down its own champion. If it was by accident, I'd hate to be in the gunner's shoes.

"Dana then attacked the two ships, single-handedly, although we knew it to be hopeless. It wasn't until after we got back to barracks that she explained that George was the GMP contact, and she was trying a theory that George's superiors had rejected, from lack of evidence. Either he had been wrong, or Dana mistimed the shot without George there to help her. We did our best to comfort her about the what had happened, as it had been George's decision to secure the computer instead of himself. But, we made little headway, and she'll have to come to terms with it herself, on her own terms.

"Alex had escorted Marie to the hospital, as she'd suffered several broken ribs and other impact damage in the catch. Before they left, he noticed that George's computer was still logged on with its cell-modem, and George's death had not yet been reported. As a result, he told us to leave the computer alone, so that we could use it when he got back. When he returned, he, Louie and Jen (John's girlfriend), used it to access the GMP's records on our unit, to make sure no one was poised to try to use us the way George did. Jen is another matter entirely. She's GMP herself, and has been ordered to stay away from John, and our unit. She had become personally involved with us, contrary to regs. As she isn't about to break up with him, orders or no orders, we'll have a friend inside the GMP - as long as the two don't get caught meeting each other.

"Our little counter-intelligence group broke up at 11:30, and soon Alex and I were left alone in his room. He swept me off my feet, and carried me to his bed. We made love, and fell asleep in each others' arms. We made love again this morning, and he asked me to marry him. I said yes, but not until the war was over. Please, let this war end soon, so I don't risk losing him!"

**Chapter Six:**

"I believe we were put here for a reason..."

- Karen Freeman, in message sent to Noel with Carpenter

**16 April, 2030**

When Noel wandered into the ready room that morning, Dana and Sean were having an interesting debate on responsibility vs. romance. Sean was pointing his thumb over his shoulder at Bowie, saying that the corporal had been spacey ever since he 'met' that girl aboard the Masters' ship. Noel was about to interrupt, when Alex grabbed her around the waist, from behind.

"What are you up to, cutie?" Alex asked playfully, spinning her around and kissing her.

"I was going to tell Dana about your proposal." Noel punctuated the line with a kiss of her own.

"Let it slide for a while; I want to hear what Dana has to say on the subject at hand."

Sean had left the room by this point, and Dana turned her attention to Bowie. The conversation turned more intense, then Dante jumped in, striking a nerve with his xenophobic remarks about the situation. Dana about put her foot in her mouth, almost saying "her" heart, instead of "his" (Bowie's).

"It's that Zor character again, isn't it?"

"Yeah. She can't get him out of her head."

"How do you know for sure? Has she talked about it to you?"

"No, but I can tell. For one thing, she gets fidgety whenever you mention his name; another thing is that she was writing his name in her ketchup with a french fry last week."

"Oh."

"Alex, I've been wondering something. I know you're through with the extraction procedures on that hair. You've been done for a week. When are you and Louie going to run the DNA through the sequencer?"

"We had to borrow a PCR machine to replicate the DNA to an amount we can test. The results should be ready tonight."

"Can I see the test results first, when you're done?"

"I don't see why not-" Alex was interrupted by a scramble alert, concerning a ship from the Pioneer mission. "The SDF-3? Let's move!"

"Right behind you!"

As it turned out, all the ATAC troops got to do was recover people from escape pods. The ship wasn't even the SDF-3; just a smaller cruiser SDF built by the RDF in 2013 originally to accompany the SDF-2, that had been the command ship of the small fleet that folded from the colonies a week after the SDF-3 to rendezvous at Tyrol. The last pod down contained the command crew, who had barely made it out after sending their ship on a plunge into one of the Masters' fortresses, blowing up both ships. The officers were met by Alex, Noel, Dana and Sean. The new arrivals were somewhat bruised, but relatively intact, considering their escape pod didn't launch until after the ships collided. Dana and Noel were the first to approach, hopeful for word of their parents.

"Lieutenant Freeman, what are you doing here?" Major Carpenter asked.

"Huh?" Noel replied. "I'm flattered, sir, but I'm only a PFC."

"Excuse me? Karen, I was talking to her." Carpenter pointed to Dana. "How did the Sentinels beat us back?"

"Sentinels?" Dana asked. "Major, I think the shock of the battle must be confusing you, causing you to mistake me for someone else. I'm Lieutenant Dana Sterling, commander of the Fifteenth ATAC, Southern Cross. Marie Freeman is my father's cousin."

"Dana Sterling? That can't be, unless... What year is this, Lieutenant?"

"2030, sir; April 16th, to be exact. Why do you ask?"

"Because we left Tyrol in 2023, or what we thought was 2023. Either we took seven years to get here, or we had cumulative time loss both directions. Out engines were upgraded before our launch, so the dilation might have resulted from a mis-calibration then."

Everyone was quiet, as they climbed into the back of the truck, where Bowie was waiting with dry blankets and hot coffee for them. As the truck began to move, the conversation resumed.

"Major, Do you have any news of my parents?" Dana asked.

"Not really. The last I heard of them, was that they and the Sentinels, a group of aliens formerly ruled by the Robotech Masters, had liberated the planet Garuda from the Invid."

"Invid? Where have I heard that name before?"

"Maybe, from your mother. The Zentraedi were mostly created to fight the Invid, and other hostile races, and to force the Sentinels' worlds into submission. With the Zentraedi all but wiped out, and the Masters here, the Invid had seized all of the Tyrolean Empire. When we arrived at the Masters' home world, we ended up having to free it from the Invid. During that fight, we met the leaders of the Sentinel races. After it was done, the Hunters led a group of volunteers to help the Sentinels liberate their worlds. Both the Sterlings and the Freemans were part of that group."

"Are my parents still alive?" Noel asked. "Shannon and Kayra Freeman. What about Bowie's parents, the Grants?"

"So, you're Noel Freeman. The last I heard, each of your parents were alive, but that may have been as long ago as seven years, all things considered." Carpenter reached into his pants pocket, and pulled out what seemed to be a gaudy, oversized locket. "A few months before our launch, Lieutenant Karen Ellison gave me this, to give to you. It may sound silly, but I've felt compelled to carry it on me ever since. I thought if I treated its delivery as unfinished business, I'd make it back at least this far."

"How's that?" Dana asked.

"It's an old military superstition, Lieutenant, but I first heard of it on an old science fiction TV show, from the Global War era."

"Like Sheridan's socks?" Alex asked, recognizing the episode from his parents' collection.

"Babylon 5; that was it. Then, I'd think you'd understand me, Lieutenant if I told you that the REF is fighting a race out there, that has some of the worst aspects of the Shadows and the Dilgar."

"Ouch! But, back to the locket. Major, you said that Noel's old babysitter gave it to you?"

"Yes, she did. It surprised me when I saw Noel; the resemblance between her and Noel is uncanny."

"We have reason to believe that Karen is more than what she seems," Alex replied. "We know now that Shannon and Kayra are in fact Noel's biological parents, and that Karen showed up within months of Noel's birth. The theory I'm currently working on is that Karen's origins might lie in the fold accident that the Freemans had, which occurred prior to Noel's birth. The few mentions of it I found, indicate that there was some sort of temporal element to the fold."

"Meaning?"

"I'm not sure; there's still too many possibilities."

Noel looked at Alex; she could see the possibilities herself, actually. Was Karen an alternate future version of herself? A sister from a future that will never be? Why couldn't they be truthful to her about all this, years ago? It would have answered so many questions...

"Major, can I have the locket now?" Noel asked, definitely not liking the direction the conversation was taking, and choosing to divert it. "What is it?"

"Sorry about that, Private; it is technically your property." He handed it to her. "It's a hologram locket; a keepsake item invented around the time of the SDF-3 launch, but too expensive to produce commercially. Each REF single member or married couple were given one, to leave a message for their families, or to take a message with them. If I recall, Dana's parents used their prototype locket to record her as a child to take with them, which itself was filmed for the instructional video that came with the distributed version. You open it by pressing the button on the bottom."

"Thank you."

Carpenter turned his attention back to the two ASC officers on board the truck; Alex and Dana. "Lieutenants, how long will it take for us to get to Monument? I need to report to Leonard and Emerson about the REF's status when I left."

"If you consent to a check-up on the way there, you can skip the hospital," Alex suggested. "I'm a doctor, and the examination would delay your entry for examination until after the meeting. You'll still have to go in to be checked for internal injuries."

"Good; and if we do that?"

"Then we can have you at the command building in about a half-hour, as opposed to a hour or so," Dana answered.

"That will do, I guess."

"Major," Bowie interrupted. "Will our families be returning any time soon?"

"I've sorry, private; but when I left, not only were we involved in an interstellar war against superior numbers, but the REF itself was on the verge of a civil war. Dr. Lang and Colonel Riley were in charge of the opposing factions, fighting over the REF position in aiding the Sentinel Races, while the Hunters and your families were all fighting alongside the Sentinels, light-years from the SDF-3, against the Invid. To make matters worse, the SDF-3's own fold system was destroyed by a bomb set by a saboteur before the launch, keeping it out of the fight with the Invid, or from returning here. No, it will be a long time before your families return, if ever."

"Thank you for being so honest about it, sir."

"Your parents, and Dana's, are friends of mine; Noel's family as well, if not as close. They would want me to be honest with you. After all, you are all adults."

Noel finally got up the courage to open the locket, holding it in her palm. A pair of images, six inches tall, sprang up from the emitters; Karen and Marie. The ATACs in the back of the truck went silent, gathering around her to see and hear this message from across the stars.

"Greetings, little sisters;" the image of Karen spoke. "We send this message to you from Praxis, a former holding of the Robotech Masters. By the time you get this message, we and our parents will either be victorious or dead." The image of the two faded, into one of Karen only, as the viewers pondered the opening lines. Only Alex really noticed the reference to "our" parents, and even then wasn't for sure he'd heard it right. Karen then continued, the new hologram wearing different clothes than in the original shot.

"Noel, my sister; regardless of the outcome of the events here, I sense that our part of the play is left to you, on Earth. I believe that we were put here for a reason; and that reason is to right the wrongs of fate. Noel, remember what I told you on the Hunters' wedding day; protect Dana and Bowie with all your power. Now is the time. The Sleeper will awaken."

The image wavered, then faded.

"That was definitely strange," Sean noted.

"Tell me about it," Alex replied nonchalantly, as the others nodded in agreement - except Noel.

Noel was still staring at the locket, oblivious to her surroundings, if not to reality in general.

**Chapter Seven:**

"Everything you know is wrong."

- 20th century cliche

"Noel?" Dana tried to shake her cousin back to coherence, but without any luck. "Alex, what's wrong with her?"

"I don't know. Angie!" Alex yelled at the cab of the truck. "There's an emergency! Get us to the hospital, STAT!"

Angie called back as the truck sped up. "What's wrong?"

"Noel was looking at a holographic message a friend sent back to her from the SDF-3, and she had a seizure of some sort."

"So, it would be okay if the ride was a bit bumpy, if it got us some more speed?"

"Yes; do what it takes."

"Then hang on!" Angie took the truck, the ASC equivalent to the classic army Deuce, cross-country when he reached another truck, passing them by driving through the scrub along the muddy path they'd made driving after the escape pods.

Dana turned to Alex, holding the locket. "Alex, when we get to the hospital, I want to take a close look at that message."

"What if it affects you the same way as Noel?

"That's a chance I'm willing to take."

"I don't get it..." Dana was watching the recording for the fifth time since they'd arrived at the hospital, and still was baffled. The base hospital had been full from Carpenter's men, and they had been diverted to the civilian hospital where Alex did his internship. "They look exactly like us, and refer to us as their 'little sisters'. It doesn't make any sense."

"Could they actually be your sisters, somehow?"

"That's impossible; aside from the age difference, I would have known if I had any sisters."

"Maybe, Dana, but I have this nagging feeling that there is something to this. What is the earliest you ever remember seeing either Karen Ellison or Marie Sterling Freeman?"

""I'm not sure. I couldn't have been more than five years old at the time. I know that Aunt Marie and Uncle Scott were married around Christmas 2017, so they must have been around before then."

The lounge door opened, and a nurse came in. "Dr. Tyler?"

"Yes?"

"Private Freeman has left the apparent catatonia she was in when you brought her in, but now she appears to be extremely disoriented, if not schizophrenic."

"Disoriented?"

"It's like she's not completely aware of her surroundings, like a schizophrenic, yet at the same time, she seems to be caught in a conflict with another person. The closest thing I ever saw in the mental heath wing was when a MPD patient had two personalties fighting for control. Other than that, I can't really explain it, and neither can the psychologist on duty."

"Can I see her?"

"You'll have to ask Dr. Carlson if you want to stay for a while, but I can let you in for a few minutes. The other lieutenant will have to wait here."

Alex started to point out that Dana was Noel's next of kin, but Dana stopped him.

"It's all right, Alex; go in and see her. Tell her that I'm thinking of her."

"I will, Dana. However, when we get back to barracks, I want to put you through some exercises to try to jog your childhood memories."

"Noel, can you hear me?"

"Alex, is... is that you?" Noel asked, faintly, barely more than a whisper. "Help me..."

"What's wrong? Can you tell me?"

"Karen... unnhh... The memories... are overwhelming me..." Suddenly, her voice changed, shifting slightly in tone and maturity. "Where - where am I?"

"Noel, what memories?"

"I'm ... not Noel. Noel is on... Earth," she gasped, her breathing quickening.

"This IS Earth. Who are you?"

"Not Noel... Karen... something's wrong... was only supposed to send ... keys to her powers - a few important memories; not... not my personality as well. Where am I? When is this?"

"Karen... how?"

"Can't explain... answer me, please! I'm trying to keep us sane; repair the damage I caused..."

"Us?"

"Noel and myself... please, answer me!" Noel's body spasmed from a mini-seizure.

"You're in Monument City General Hospital; it's 16 April."

"What... what year?"

"2030."

"Oh...oh God... What went wrong? Who are you?"

"Alex; Alex Tyler. I'm Noel's fiancé."

"Fiancé? ... Noel's all grown up, now. Thank you, Alex. I'll try my best to fix things in here... I... I didn't mean..." Noel's body shuddered, then she lapsed back into unconsciousness.

"Lieutenant?" Alex turned to find the doctor on duty. The doctor continued. "It might be best for you to leave, and get some rest. Do you know this 'Karen' persona?"

"It's more than a persona, I think. The thing that sent her into this state was a holographic message from this Karen, sent from the SDF-3 mission with one of the ship's officers. The message ended with a quote from an old science fiction story. It may have been the trigger phrase for some kind of post-hypnotic suggestion."

"After almost ten years? That's highly unlikely, but it could explain parts of her condition. Even her EEG is showing signs of two overlapping set of brain activity. The neurologist on duty is baffled."

"The call desk has my number. Keep me informed of any changes."

"I will, Alex. I know how hard it is to stay objective when someone you love is ill. That's why you're not the doctor of record."

"I understand. Keep General Emerson informed as well; she's one of the 'RDF brats' left under his guardianship. He'll want to know."

"Understood. Take your commander back to base, and both of you get some rest. There's a war on, remember?"

**Chapter Eight:**

"Now I know what Epimetheus felt when his wife opened that damned box."

- Alex Tyler, Journal entry, 17 April 2030

"Alex, how is she?" Dana asked, as Alex entered the ready room. She had left without him, not knowing how long he'd take.

"Not too good, Dana. I've been thinking about her condition. Somehow, she's actually been POSSESSED by an aspect of Karen."

"Possessed? Like in demonic possession? You've got to be kidding!"

"I wish I was. Something happened when she saw that hologram; something I can't explain in rational, scientific terms. Somehow, part of Karen's consciousness traveled back with the locket, and embedded itself in Noel's mind. Dana, have you ever been hypnotized?"

"Not to my knowledge. Why?"

"I'd like to try hypnosis on you, to see what you can remember about Karen, Marie and Noel."

"Come to think of it, didn't you ask me to do this back in December?"

"Yeah, but Noel was so accepting of what we found out, after thinking it through, that we didn't think it was necessary to bother you with."

"Well, it is now."

"Then, let's do it in the lab, with the doors locked, so those clowns over there can't eavesdrop."

"Good; the last thing I want is for them to hear anything personal."

They went down the hall to the lab, watching the others (who had been peripherally listening to the conversation, for news of Noel) like a hawk. As soon as the door closed, they could hear thumping against the door, as the rest of the squad jockeyed for position.

"Animals."

"But we wouldn't want them any other way," Alex replied, pulling a pendulum out of a drawer.

"True..."

"Okay... Dana, concentrate on the pendulum, while taking steady, even breaths. Relax; clear your mind of all other thoughts." Dana turned out to be very easy to hypnotize, as she was almost in the trance state before Alex could tell her. "When I count to three, you will answer my questions as best you can... One... Two... Three... Dana?"

"Yes?"

"I want you go back to 2017, to the day you first saw Karen Ellison."

"Yes, Alex." Dana's speech seemed to waver, becoming more child-like.

"Where are you?"

"I'm in a room, on a spaceship... I'm scared..."

"Why are you scared, Dana?"

"A man tried to hurt Noel..."

"How was he trying to hurt her?"

"He was undressing her, then..."

"What happened then?"

"Noel was fighting him, and he blew up..."

"Huh? Dana, what happened to him, again?"

"He...he blew up; it was icky..."

"Did someone shoot him?"

"No; Noel just looked at him, and he blew up."

Alex was stunned. It took him almost a minute to ask Dana to continue.

"What happened to you and Noel after the man blew up?"

"Noel grabbed me, and then we fell into another room."

"Fell?"

"We fell off the table, but didn't hit the floor. When I opened my eyes, we were somewhere else."

"How do you know you're somewhere else?"

"There's a window in the room; I can see Earth in it. I hear Noel behind me; she's screaming."

"Why is she screaming?"

"She's... she's getting bigger."

"How much bigger?"

"She looks older than me now; almost as old as Scott..."

"Scott who? Her uncle?"

"Not that old...Dr. Lang's nephew... Scott Bernard..."

"How old is Scott?"

"He's big; almost ten."

"I see. What is Noel doing?"

"She's running away from me. I try to catch up to her, but she runs too fast. I'm alone."

"When does someone find you?"

"Later that day... Karen finds me; she's holding Noel in her arms."

"What does Noel look like?"

"She looks like herself, silly."

"I mean, how big is she?"

"She's back the way she was when the bad men grabbed us."

"Hmm..." Alex was calm on the exterior, but his mind and his insides were doing a fair imitation of the Gordian Knot. "How long do you and Noel stay with Karen?"

"A long time. Mommy said we were gone a month, when she picked us up from Unca Dar's ship."

"When did you first meet your Aunt Marie?"

"A few days after Karen brought noel back, she looked really sad. She poked me with a big needle, and left me and Noel again, in bed. The next morning, she came back with Marie. From then on, Marie took care of me."

"I see." HOLY SHIT... Alex thought. "How did you get to Uncle Dar's ship?"

"Karen got us dressed in our old clothes, then held us. The room was filled with light, and then we were in the elevator of the ship. The door opened, and Karen pushed us out the door. We didn't see Karen or Marie again for another month, and they told us not to tell."

"Okay, Dana. That's enough for now. I'm going to count to three, and when you wake up, you will remember everything we've talked about; understand?"

"Yes."

"One... Two... Three... You are awake."

Dana sat up from her slouched position as if someone had electrified the chair. "Alex, what the hell was that?"

"The truth, apparently."

"I remember something, now. Uncle Scott and Aunt Jean hypnotized Noel and me back then, to try to find out information on the kidnappers."

"Actually, Dana; if what you remembered is right, Scott Freeman's not your uncle or cousin; he's your brother-in-law."

"Huh?"

"Remember that sample Karen took? Karen cloned you. Marie Freeman is your clone, closer in relation to you than if you had an identical twin."

"Why did she do it, and how?"

"As to how, that ship you were on was actually the Factory Satellite. Why she did it, is obvious. She was lonely, now that she was grown up."

"Grown up?"

"You see, you were her best friend, and she was left alone when she grew up, and you didn't. So, she made an adult clone of you."

"Who cloned me? I don't understand."

"Noel did; the REAL Noel. The Noel Freeman we know is a clone. Karen Ellison is the real Noel Freeman."

"Oh my God."

"And now the original Noel has sent a message back to her clone, and something has gone wrong."

"But, how did these changes take place in her? Why did she age the way she did?"

"I don't know. It may have something to do with the powers that Karen Noel exhibited. Teleportation, pyrokinesis; God only knows what else. Those powers must have put an incredible strain on her metabolism. She must have had to eat incredible amounts of food during that period of growth from a five-year-old size to a teenage body. I don't know where her powers came from, for sure, or even how they worked. But, it must be significant that the rapid growth came immediately after the heavy use of them."

"Does Noel have them?"

"I don't know; but I'm willing to bet on the answer being 'yes'. While the powers were the reason Noel was cloned originally, to cover Karen's aging, the message sent back seemed to be a perfect code for the activation of them. Think about it - 'The Sleeper must awaken.' Karen probably corrected the aging flaws, or put the powers to where Noel couldn't access them until after her body could handle them. The real questions are how much of Karen's abilities does Noel have, and where did Karen get the knowledge to operate the cloning chamber - among other things?"

"Noel's going to need us to help her come to terms with this."

"I know; this is even more complex than we could have ever imagined. Unfortunately, she's on her own right now, until her mind stabilizes."

**Chapter Nine:**

"Synchronistic Fate: the coming together, as if by design, of evidently unrelated phenomena or persons in order to form a clear pattern." - Tristan Jones

**17 April, 2030**

"Alex, wake up." Alex woke up, to find Dana standing over him.

"What is it, Dana? I've barely had any sleep at all."

"And I'm any different? Anyway, the hospital called; Noel came out of it this morning. They want to keep her for observation for another day, but with luck she'll be released tomorrow morning. By the way, her promotion finally came through; she'll be Corporal Freeman when she gets back. I was wondering if you wanted to ride in with me to the hospital; I was going to visit her while I was there, so you two can have some time together before I visit."

"I thought Marie was in the military hospital?"

"They transferred her to Monument General, to make room for Carpenter's worst cases."

"Makes sense. I can't believe that Sean's actually going after Crystal."

"They do say that opposites attract."

"I wonder how Marie would react to your statement."

"I don't know, except that it wouldn't be nice."

"Noel?" Alex asked from the half-open door. "You up for company?"

"Alex, come in. I'm glad you came in to see me; it's BORING here."

"If you think this is bad, how would you like to be Marie Crystal, bedridden and being romantically pursued by Sean Phillips?"

"Touche. I heard you and Dana did a little research last night."

"Dana mention that? Yeah, we did, but I'm not sure you're ready for what we found."

"Dana didn't tell me; I just know. Just like I already know that I'm a clone of Karen Freeman. I found that out while she helped me repair the accidental damage she did to my mind. It was her idea to tell me who and what I am, by way of the locket, but it wasn't her idea to send an actual part of herself in doing so. I was caught in a very literal personality crisis. It took everything we had, to salvage my sanity."

"What happened to Karen?"

"As far as I know, the real Karen is on the other side of the galaxy, alive and well. As for the part of her in my mind, she merged herself into me. I've retained most of her memories that she brought along, but she's no longer an independent entity. I also incorporated something she'd left behind in my mind, when she left."

"What was that?"

"A guardian spirit, of sorts; based on my parents. Due to her powers developing in the womb, she copied much of our parents' minds, not to mention a bit of her doctors'. That's how she knew to do everything she did, and how I was able to land the shuttle after the Liberty contact mission."

"Do you have Karen's powers as well?"

"No, not really. At least, she didn't tell me of any of them, other than the mental powers and low-level telekinesis. I think she wants me to get used to them, before opening up my access to the more intricate ones."

"Can you tell what I'm thinking?"

"Yes, and you should be ashamed of yourself."

"Cute, Noel."

:"You were the one picturing me nude in this hospital bed. And furthermore, you better get around to checking that hair you found on Bowie. Just because I'm in the hospital for a few days, doesn't mean you can start slacking off."

"Okay, I will."

"You better go; I sense the nurse is getting ready to run another test on me - I've got to fine tune the sensitivity, eventually, or this telepathy's going to get me into trouble. Do me a favor, though; go ahead and move my things into your room. We don't have to worry about my age anymore; as a clone, I fall under the age laws passed for Zentraedi."

"I guess you could look at it that way. Your wish is my command, milady. See you tomorrow."

"I can't wait."

Alex and Dana both overslept the next morning, but for different reasons. Dana's night had been haunted by images of Zor, the Red Bioroid pilot she had encountered on the battlefield more than once. Alex, however, was haunted by the changes he'd seen in Noel. Since her 'possession' by Karen, she seemed more assertive, self-confidant. How much of Noel was left after Karen's accidental intrusion, and how much of Karen remained? And, how would the others react when they found out that Noel could read their minds? It was almost sunrise when he finally fell asleep, and after noon when he finally got up. Luckily, the 15th had the day off, so both he and Dana got away with their unusual sleeping time.

They both ended up in the ready room around sunset, eating their first real meal of the day. Bowie was playing his piano version of the song he had heard Musica play, and Dana went to talk to him, after finishing her dinner. Alex, on the other hand, talked to Louie about setting up the equipment to run the DNA test. Suddenly, the regular routine of the 15th was broken by Sean and Noel running into the room, out of breath. Noel had just gotten out of the hospital, after a string of last-minute tests, and Sean had given her a lift back as he returned from visiting Marie.

"Alex, Dana; come here!" Noel yelled first.

"You guys aren't going to believe this, but do I have a piece of news!" Sean added.

"Spit it out, Sean!" Dana ordered.

"I did some investigating, and found out who the GMP has stashed away on the ninth floor of the hospital. It's a captured Bioroid pilot - a RED Bioroid pilot."

"Did you see him?"

"No, he's under pretty tight security, but somehow Noel was able to find out that it's the same pilot you guys saw out in the Macross Sector."

"Zor? I've got to see him!"

"Heel, Dana; heel..." Alex teased.

"Yeah, Dana. Those Gimps might have some different ideas about that."

"I don't care about them. I've got some questions to ask, and that Bioroid pilot's the only one capable of answering them."

"Yeah, but you'll never get close enough to ask him," Louie chimed in.

"Wanna bet?" Alex snapped back, a devious look in his eyes.

"I don't like the sound of this, Lieutenant," Angie droned.

"I do, Angie. But, Alex, I have a few ideas of my own. Let's get to work on our plans of attack."

"Okay; but first, I need to start that analysis, and let it run while we're at work."

**Chapter Ten:**

"Without music, life would be a mistake." - Friedrich Nietzsche

**18 April, 2030**

Getting into the hospital would be easy; getting into Zor's room was a bit harder. The plan was to distract Nova by getting her off the ninth floor, while getting Marie out of her eighth floor room, which by some odd coincidence was directly underneath Zor's. Dan would then climb up the exterior of the building to Zor's room. Meanwhile, Alex and Noel had their own plans.

"Are you sure you can pull this off?"

"Easy as pie, Lover. We take the elevator up to the ninth floor, and just walk into his room. Thanks to one of the powers Karen showed me, the guards will think I'm Nova."

"How?"

"I'll be projecting telepathically that I'm Nova. To them, I'll look and sound like Nova; they won't be able to tell the difference."

"Interesting; but how will that get me by them?"

"Just be in your medical attire and hospital pass, instead of your uniform. After all, you are a xeno-medicine specialist - says so on your ID. All it will take is a word from 'Lieutenant Nova Satori' to give you clearance for the floor and the patient."

"Sounds great; let's hope it works. Tell Dana and her 'not ready for prime time players' to give me an additional ten minutes to change clothes."

"Can I help?"

"Noel, not now!"

"I'm just kidding..."

"No you weren't - I know you too well. Go tell Dana to wait for us, and to give us an additional ten minutes to set up the clearance change."

Alex and Noel just walked into the lobby of the hospital, like normal people. They did a pass-through of the elevator station, where Noel went into her Nova disguise. From there, they rounded the corner, entered the security station, and had Alex's clearance updated. They then returned to the elevators, taking up positions in the plastic plants to wait and watch for Nova's departure.

Meanwhile, Dana's team bluffed their way into the hospital's loading dock, and set up their gear. Five minutes later, Bowie placed a call to Nova, imitating the voice of his godfather's personal secretary, telling her that she was needed at the Ministry Building. When Nova stepped off the elevator, Alex and Noel slipped behind her, and into the elevator. Alex immediately opened the control box with his passkey, and punched in the code for medical override, which would prevent others from stopping or calling that particular elevator for the extent of the trip. The elevator had to be empty, except for the two of them.

At this time, Sean's team was wheeling Marie out of her room. Seconds later, Alex and "Nova" stepped out of the elevator, which (thanks to Alex's keying as he left it) dropped down one floor to the waiting romance party, to take to the roof patio. Angie took control of the elevator, Louie the escape van, and Bowie waited in the lobby in case Nova returned.

"Who are you?"

"Friends, Zor. My name is Noel, and this is Alex. We've come to talk to you. Do you remember anything about the Robotech Masters, or why they've come here?"

"No. Nova asked me that before. Repeatedly. Where did she go?"

"We had to send her off on a diversion. She wouldn't approve of you talking to us."

"Why?"

"For one thing, she's part of the military police, while we're just combat troops who've been fighting you for the last year," Alex quipped.

"Fighting you?"

About this time, Dana pulled herself through the window, disrupting the conversation.

"Don't move, Zor!" Dana announced, pulling out a dart pistol.

"Dana, what are you doing?" Noel asked, shocked by her cousin's action.

"What does it look like?" She pointed the gun at Zor, who turned toward her, and walked up to her. "Stay back! If you don't, I'll fire!"

Zor leaped instinctively, kicking the gun from Dana's hand. She then tried to punch him, but he knocked her to the floor and pinned her there. "Why are you trying to kill me? What have I done?"

"You're responsible for killing men under my command! Haven't they told you?" she gasped, motioning with her head toward Alex & Noel.

Zor seemed surprised by this, and let up a bit on her. Dana took advantage of this, flipping him over her head with her feet, but he landed on his feet. Dana regained her footing and attacked again, only to miss her overplayed attack and be taken down again. When she looked up, Zor had the pistol pointed at her. Dana was glad at this point that it was only a dart gun, not a slugthrower.

"You're the one; the Red Bioroid."

"What are you saying?"

"You're the one we saw in the mounds of Macross - the one who captured Bowie! And the one inside the fortress!"

"Nova told me the same thing. What does it mean - Bioroid?"

"Your memory only works when you're killing my men, is that it? I don't know why I'm even bothering with you, ALIEN!"

"Alien? I'm a human being!" As he spoke, Dana kicked him, slamming him into the wall.

"I was there when you crawled out of that Bioroid! Don't deny it!"

"I won't, then; but I wasn't responsible for what I was doing. You've got to believe me!"

"Who made you do it? Who are they?"

"Can't you see? I've lost my memory..."

Noel had seen enough. "Stop it, you two! Dana, What's gotten into you? You're letting your Zentraedi side loose!"

"Zentraedi..." Zor seemed to recognize the name.

"Uh, girls..." Alex interrupted, from his vantage point by the door. "Something's gone wrong. I hear Bowie and Angie outside. It's their diversionary skit."

"Oh, shit," Dana muttered. Everyone went quiet, and they heard Bowie whistling outside, their signal to scram. Noel returned to Alex's side.

"Zor, we've got to go. You can't remember anything at all?"

"No, it's hopeless... Wait - that music; what is that music?"

"One of my troopers learned it from an alien girl on the fortress."

"Yes, I remember... A girl named Musica."

"That's right!"

"I'm not even sure how I knew that."

"But this is great!" Dana exclaimed, inexplicably changing from a hostile attitude to a supporting one. "It's starting to look like your memory's returning!"

Suddenly, the door opened, and Nova stormed in. "I'll have your bars for this, Sterling!"

Due to their position, Nova didn't see Noel and Alex. Instinctively, Noel held Alex close, and everything blurred. When Alex's vision cleared, they was standing in his quarters.

"What happened?"

"I -I don't know. I was scared, so I grabbed on to you. I was wishing we weren't trapped like that."

"You teleported us."

"Teleported?"

"Sort of like folding, on a smaller scale. Karen could, from what I learned from Dana, but we weren't sure you could."

"I wonder if Dana got away?"

"Try to reach her with your powers."

"I'll try... She's all right; she grabbed her safety line, and slid down it to Marie's room. The others will be back in a half-hour."

Good. Now, let me check on that hair sample. I left the comparison running while we were gone." Alex looked at the answer the machine popped out, and went weak in the knees. "Oh - my - God."

"What is it?"

"Nothing important, Noel; nothing important at all..." Alex sat down, staring at the computer display of the ID match: Zentraedi genetics donor 1269.


	12. Book Three, Part Eleven

**Part Eleven: Dancing on a High Wire**

**Chapter One:**

"If Zor really is a clone of the original, then whose side is he really on? The Masters, whom the original swore never to serve again? His own? Just how much of his amnesia is real, and how much of it is psychological, or even feigned? And, what will happen if he and the clone of Musica come face-to-face? It could spell disaster for the hopes and dreams of both Dana and Bowie."

**From the journal of Alex Tyler, late May 2030.**

**22-25 May 2030**

The month following the hospital incident was filled with lots of tension for the members of the 15th ATAC. Zor had been moved from the hospital, yet no word had ever come out about their "involvement" with him. Dana had spent the first two weeks waiting for Nova to arrest her at any minute. Yet, Nova never showed; for that matter, no one even knew where Nova was at the time, as she disappeared from all the GMP duty rosters during the same period. Alex and Noel had their own reason to worry, as Zor had seen them, even if Nova hadn't, and their means of departure from the room was highly irregular. They could only wonder just how much Zor had told the GMP about his visitors.

Finally, almost five weeks after the incident, Dana got a call to report to Emerson's office. No details concerning the reason for the summons were given, and her escort was the long-absent Nova Satori. As only Dana was called, Alex and Noel felt slightly safer, but Alex felt for sure he was going to end up back in charge of the squadron again. But, strangely enough, Dana returned with a new recruit; one she seemed very enthusiastic about, but would not let anyone see before she introduced him to the squadron as a whole.

"...Our new recruit's a very skilled soldier. I can tell you that he was assigned to us personally by General Emerson himself, and I have the utmost confidence in his decision."

Everyone was puzzled; who could this recruit be, that it would be so important to the ASC leaders to personally oversee his unit assignment?

"All right; you can come in now," Dana called through the doorway. The door opened, and the mystery recruit entered. "This is Zor. He will be serving with us until further notice."

"Is this the ALIEN?" Angie spoke for most of the squad. Even Alex was taken aback by the identity of the recruit, though Noel seemed unfazed.

"Zor is officially part of our unit."

"Lieutenant, is this the real dope?" Louie asked, unbelieving.

"Louie, do you think I'm crazy enough to make something like this up? Not to mention somehow acquiring a P.O.W. from custody, to pull a stunt like that?"

"Lieutenant, I saw this guy shot down by his own troops, with my own eyes! He's a spy!"

"Dante," Alex replied for Dana; "did you ever consider the possibility that he was shot down while trying to DEFECT?" Alex didn't believe it himself, but since Zor was amnesiac, and so resembled the historical Zor, he thought Zor deserved a chance to prove himself. Besides, he could hardly pass up the chance to befuddle the gung-ho sergeant.

"Well... uh..."

"Maybe, Alex, but there's no way I want him for my wingman," Sean chipped in. The crowd was getting restless.

"QUIET!" Dana screamed at her bickering subordinates, instantly getting her demand filled. "Now; I'm still in command here, and I'm telling you that Zor is OFFICIALLY assigned to our unit! You let the general staff worry about where his loyalties lie; it's our job to make him feel welcome, and that's it! As for your little comment, Sean; from now on, he's your wingman, like it or not! Any questions? No? DISMISSED!"

Most of the squad filed out of the room, as Alex and Noel looked on. Some of the troopers, like Eddie Jordan, had already decided not to give Zor a chance. Others, like Louie, Alex, and Noel, were interested in what role Zor would play in their unit. Louie, however, made the mistake of asking Zor about his possible relationship with Dana, confusing Zor and incensing Dana. She quickly ushered Louie out the door, leaving only Alex, Noel, Zor and herself in the room.

"Zor, do you remember us?" Noel asked.

"You were the other two in my room with Lieutenant Sterling, who disappeared when Nova returned. How did you do that?"

"That's a long story, and one you're not cleared for," Alex fibbed. "However, I was wondering if you could help us. Both Noel and Dana are half-Zentraedi, and part of the reason I'm stationed with them is my work on Tiresian and Zentraedi genetics. I'm a doctor as well as a soldier, and I was wondering if you'd consent to giving me a blood sample, so I can check on the validity of my research. It would also allow me to better treat you, should you be injured in battle."

"Do I have to? The GMP has been sticking me with needles for weeks."

"Only one needle, then I won't bother you again. Also, if any of the others give you trouble, just tell Dana or me, and we'll handle it."

"Thank you, Lieutenant."

"Zor, you can call me Alex. You appear to have been named for the inventor of Robotechnology, and if you're related to him, instead of just named for him, we may have much in common."

"If that's what you want, Alex."

"Zor, Alex;" Dana cut in. "If the two of you are through with the introductions, I'd like to put Zor in the sidearm simulator, to test his reflexes. Is that all right with you, Zor?"

"I guess so."

Zor's performance in the simulator was incredible, surpassing even Noel's previous best of 22 out of 24 by hitting all the targets within the 1 minute time allotment. Some of the 15th were impressed. However, his performance reminded others how he and his Bioroids had killed a number of their squad. Eddie lost his cool, threatening to shoot Zor because of his brother's death months earlier. Zor's reaction was almost as surprising; he just stood there. This reaction proved to Alex, at least, that the memory loss was real. After everything calmed down, Alex got the blood sample, and ran the tests.

As it turned out, the computer spat out a negative result. In fact, Alex was hard-pressed to find even distant relatives of Zor in the gene pool. This, combined with the information from the decoded log that the original Zor's genetics were not used in the Zentraedi creation process, lent heavily to the theory that Zor was a clone of THE Zor.

The next few days were spent familiarizing Zor with the field operation of the Hovertanks, as all his experience before his arrival was with the simulators used to prep him for the assignment. Dana and Noel took it upon themselves to be his instructors, and it made Alex a little jealous that Noel was spending so much time with the handsome alien. Finally, the training was completed, and the squadron had the day off from patrol duties.

Alex, hoping to get some time with Noel away from the rest of the squadron, took her to Arcadia, Monument's amusement park. As luck would have it, Dana had chose to "debrief" Zor there, and the two couples ran into each other within the first hour there. Somehow, Noel convinced Alex and Dana that they'd have more fun hanging around together, so they went to the Space Tunnel together. Alex & Noel's car on the ride was immediately behind Dana & Zor's. The latter didn't exactly seem thrilled with the idea of the ride, either, Alex noticed.

"Maybe you and Dana ought to ride this together..." he mumbled.

"What was that?"

"Oh, nothing..." Alex replied, locking and double-checking his safety harness.

The ride started, and Alex actually began to enjoy the ride - at least until he caught a glimpse of the car ahead. Zor was screaming, and it wasn't a roller-coaster type scream, either. Then, to his horror, Dana's harness came loose, and she was barely hanging on. Almost as quickly, Zor managed to unlock his own harness, and grabbed her arm, pulling her back into the car. They then huddled in the floor, to keep the car's center of gravity low, to where it wouldn't throw them out. Seconds later, they cleared the tunnel, and the ride ended.

Alex had managed to hear Zor's cry as he rescued Dana, over the noise of the ride. Evidently, she had been too frightened and he too confused to realize what he had cried out. He had called out a name; but it wasn't Dana's. He had screamed "Musica". This scared Alex much more than the shooting sim had scared Eddie Jordan.

**Chapter Two:**

"Do you believe in Rock & Roll

Can music save your mortal soul..."

Don McLean, "American Pie"

When Dana and Zor pulled into the end of the ride, they almost got thrown out of the park, until Alex pointed out Dana's harness came open on its own, and Zor's too easily, and that he was more than willing to testify in a liability lawsuit (managing to get them season passes for the park out of the deal). Regardless, Dana was so messed up by her brush with death that she returned to barracks, while Zor went early to his regular progress meeting with Nova.

Alex and Noel stayed at the park until it closed, Alex trying unsuccessfully to shake the implications of what he'd heard. They made it back to barracks just under curfew, to find (for once) everyone but Dana already in bed; the others had fled to their bunks to escape the wrath of Dana. Zor hadn't returned from his session with Nova, and Dana was pacing the ready room like a caged lion.

"Dana, what's wrong?"

"Zor's late; where could he be?"

"Have you called Nova?"

"Yes, Alex. No one's answering either her office phone, or at her apartment."

"Her apartment? How did you get that number? Those numbers are unlisted, even to where the phone company doesn't know which officer has which number."

"She gave it to me. We talk occasionally, when one of us has something the other would want to trade for."

"Trade? Forget I asked. Have you tried the hospital?"

"They're not there either. I'm worried something's wrong."

"Let me try something." Alex went over to the wall phone, and called the hospital dispatch. The operator immediately recognized him.

"Good evening, Dr. Tyler. How may I help you?"

"Has the GMP called for Professor Cochran tonight?"

"Let's see... Cochran is unavailable tonight, as he is visiting his brother in Brasilia for the week. But, yes, a Lieutenant Satori called for him earlier tonight. Dr. Katz was the only physician with comparable security clearances on call, so we sent him."

"Where was he sent to?"

"GMP enlisted barracks. What is your interest in this, doctor?"

"Satori was interviewing one of my subordinates tonight, who happens to be a patient of mine, as well. He was only recently released from Cochran's care at the hospital to my care on an outpatient basis, and he failed to return to barracks before taps. I figured cross-referencing the GMP with Cochran would locate him for me, provided he wasn't AWOL illegally. Thanks for the assistance." Alex hung up, then turned to Dana and Noel.

"Well, I found our missing trooper. Do you want me to call, or do you want to do it yourself?"

"I think it's my place to do it, after all," Dana replied, stepping to the phone and tapping in the number. A GMP private appeared on the screen.

"Barracks Seven, front desk."

"Private, this is Lieutenant Sterling of the 15th ATAC," Dana launched in at the private, not letting him have the chance to say another word. "Put me through to Lieutenant Satori, NOW. I don't care if she is busy, Private; she's busy with one of my men. Don't make me have to go over your head to my foster father, Chief of Staff Emerson." Dana was letting her Zentraedi side out, full blast, and it was having a visible effect on the private. Ten seconds later, Nova appeared on the screen.

"Dana; I should have known. If you're calling about Zor, he's had a relapse, and will be under observation until his condition improves. He collapsed three hours ago, and is being treated in the triage center here until Cochran can come back from Brasilia tomorrow. After then, he'll be taken back to the hospital for more tests. I apologize for not calling you sooner, but I had my hands full with the situation."

Dana replied by hanging up, and storming out of the room.

"So, Zor passed out at the meeting?"

"Yeah; Dana's taking it pretty hard. I guess she's having a hard time dealing with these feelings she has for him, and somehow she sees Nova as a potential threat or rival."

"I think I understand. You feel threatened by Zor, don't you?"

"A little; you've been spending a lot of time with him."

"I feel a kinship with him, somehow, but I'm not interested in him in any other way."

"I want to believe you, but..."

"But, it's hard not to notice. What is it about him that makes you scared about our relationship?"

"It has something to do with your ancestry, but I don't want to open that can of worms any time soon. Let's go to bed."

"Fine with me, loverboy. But, try to find out what's wrong with Zor, so Dana won't be driving Nova bonkers all week."

**30 May 2030**

It would be five more days before Zor returned to the 15th. During this time, Alex helped Noel refine the use of her powers by trying to locate Dana and Zor at cross-city distances. Noel also built a scale model hovercraft to go with Louie's 1/6 scale Red Bioroid. The night before Zor's release, she practiced her telekinesis with the models, using them to scare Sean. Sean had come in late from a visit with Marie, only to find the four foot tall Bioroid and hovercraft flying down the hall at him, with no visible means of support. His screams woke the rest of the squad, who had a good laugh at his expense, since the Bioroid had been teleported back to the lab when he looked away, leaving him with no proof that anything had actually happened to him.

Finally, Zor returned. Louie showed Zor the model Bioroid, only to be shunned. Eddie, on the other hand, took the rejection of Louie's handiwork as callousness about the deaths Zor had caused, and gave in to his urge to avenge is brother. Luckily, Angie intercepted Eddie, and broke up the fight before it could escalate. Though he still had only others' word on what he had done as a Bioroid pilot, Zor was finally beginning to comprehend the effect that his service to the Masters had on his new associates.

Alex feared that, based on Zor's reaction to Eddie, Zor might become suicidal. So, when Zor left the lounge, Alex followed at a distance, as quietly as possible. Zor ended up in the exercise room, staring at himself in one of the fold-up mirrors used for dance & gymnastic exercises. Alex dared not enter, and he ducked into the neighboring storage room as he heard Dana approach, looking for Zor. After all, despite her own motives, Dana would not approve of anyone else spying on Zor. After Dana joined Zor in the exercise room, Alex crept up to the door, to eavesdrop on their conversation.

"I'm tired of this. Please leave me alone, Dana."

Even without looking into the room, Alex could detect the rage building inside Zor.

"I don't want you bothering me anymore. And I don't want my memory back either; understand?"

"I don't believe what I'm hearing!" Dana snapped back.

"I can't take this whole situation! If your people want what's locked up inside my brain, tell them to operate!" Zor's anger was overt, now, and Alex began debating whether it was time to intervene.

"You're really hurting me. I'm only trying to help you. I want us to keep being friends; please... let me." Dana closed on Zor. "Listen to me; the past is the past. I don't care what you did. I only know you as you are now. And I think part of you feels as close to me as I feel to you. Don't run away from this - together, we can win!"

"That's it, Dana," Alex thought to himself. "When in doubt, quote Minmei."

Zor's reaction caught both Alex and Dana off-guard. "No! It's over!"

"Okay. If that's the way you want it, fine." Dana turned to head for the door, causing Alex to dive for cover. "But don't come looking for me when you need help!"

From around the corner, Alex heard a few, stomping footsteps, followed by a curse from Dana as she stubbed her toe, then kicked the protruding object. This was followed by the crash of lots of breaking glass. Alex started again to enter the room, but stopped when he heard their voices.

"Zor."

"Musica... When I first saw her, she was playing this beautiful music. Then, I used her as a shield... I didn't think they'd kill her, but they did!"

"No, Zor, they didn't. Bowie saw her - alive! It must have been a dream."

"I have no memory; I'm an android. I did kill Eddie's brother, I'm certain of it." Alex heard the sound of more glass breaking, then Zor screamed again. "By Haydon! The Robotech Masters, they must control me completely! There's only one way to defeat them - I must destroy myself!"

Alex again was torn over whether or not to enter. He could hear Dana sobbing. Then, Dana began to regain her composure.

"No, Zor. There's always hope... Your hands! Look at them... Androids don't bleed. You're human, Zor; as human as I am."

"Without a memory? Without a will of my own?" Zor paused, as Dan's words began to sink in. "I'm sorry, Dana. I've said some terrible things to you."

"It's all right. Let me help you."

The crisis seemed passed, so Alex went into the office next door, grabbed the first aid kit, and returned to the exercise room as if he'd been led there by the sound of the breaking mirror. "Are you two okay?" he asked as he entered the glass-strewn room.

"I'm fine, Alex; but Zor needs you to look at his hands."

Alex checked Zor's hands, removing a few small shards of glass. He then placed the first aid kit into Dana's hands. "If I leave the kit with you, can you finish bandaging his hands?"

"Yeah."

"Good. I just remembered something I have to tell Noel." Alex stood up, turned and left the two to sort out their wounds, physical and mental. Noel was waiting in his room, looking a little shaken herself.

"Is Zor okay?"

"Yeah; just a few cuts on his hands. How did you know?"

"I was trying to reach you telepathically, but all I got was your observations of Dana and Zor. The volatility of their emotions overwhelmed my attempt to contact you."

"You'll get better in filtering things like that out, I'm sure. Their spat did give me confirmation of one theory, though. It concerns those two, Bowie, and yourself."

"What is it?"

"I'm now one hundred percent certain that Zor is a clone of THE Zor."

"How did you figure this out?"

"His flashback was a twisted version of the death of his original lover, before they were clones. The main difference is that she willingly shielded him, instead of him using her as a shield."

"What has that to do with Dana, Bowie and me?"

"Zor's lover was the original Musica."

"I understand how that affects Bowie and Dana, but how does it affect me?"

"Well, besides being Zor's lover, Musica was also the maternal source for the genetic codes that went into making the Parino and Marinoni clone lines. In other words, Bowie's fallen in love with your and Dana's grandmother."

"WHAT?"

"You heard me. Musica is your genetic grandmother, and Dana's as well. I've known since I tested the hair, but I was afraid to say anything."

"Are you going to tell the others?"

"Are you kidding? I was barely able to convince myself to tell you. They're just not ready for it. Will you keep it under wraps until they are ready?"

"If you want me to. I understand how this is potentially a problem."

"Thanks." Alex sat down next to her on the bed, and began unzipping her uniform top. "And now for something completely different..."

"Mind reader..."

A few days later, the first offensive was launched. The 15th being held in reserve, Dana decided to take Bowie and Zor on a trip to the Macross ruins, to try and jog Zor's memories of their encounter there. Alex and Noel went along, but chose to stay outside when the others entered the SDF-1 mound. This was unfortunate, as they would have recognized the flowers for what they were, and only Noel (by way of Karen's message) would have known their significance. Some things aren't meant to be.

**Chapter Three:**

"The boundaries between what can be done, and what SHOULD be done, are very fine lines. Since Karen's gift, I've felt compelled to act more and more in opposition to the grand plans of the Masters, and those who would emulate them here on Earth. Deciding just how much I can interfere with what has been foreseen, without causing catastrophic change, is even more stressful than actually doing the deed. The stress reminds me of a quote from one of Alex's SF series, an oath taken by members of a council with the fate of a race in their hands. 'I am Gray. I stand between the darkness and the light; between the candle and the star.' I don't think I ever understood the meaning of that oath until now."

- Diary of Noel Freeman, 2 June 2030.

**3 June 2030**

The past week had been filled with worry for their friends in the CU and TASC. The Air/Ground rivalry was forgotten, as they listened for news - any news - of the Black Lions. Finally, Marie's group broke through, thanks to a secondary attack from Earth distracting the Masters. Unfortunately, all this did allow was the misnamed "Strike Force Victory" to return to Earth, while their "rescuers" took their place at ALUCE and the reactivated lunar farside base that had been the construction site of the SDF-2 and Earth's meager pre-Zentraedi space forces.

The reunion was short, as the news soon came that Emerson was being sent to command the lunar operations. Everyone knew that the decision was a farce; the political supporters of Leonard didn't even attempt to conceal that it was an exile at best, a suicide mission at worst. Some appeared to hope that Rolf would be victorious in the manner of Nelson; i.e., posthumously. Leonard, himself, seemed to have the least malice in his motives. While Emerson was his most vocal opponent, Rolf was also the most likely to maximize what he was being given; "make lemons into lemonade", as per the old cliche.

However, as much as people thought Leonard was out of control, the truth was that his tactics were stretching the Masters' forces thin, in ways that the ideas of Emerson and others did not. Jokes and lingering doubts about Leonard's behavior 15 years aside, the truth remained that Leonard was the master of long-term strategy, while Emerson was at his best on an immediate tactical level - at least if the UEG politicians were letting them do their jobs - and both knew it. Bowie took the news hard, though he did his best to conceal his pain. Dana and Noel were also affected, but they had faith that Emerson was unsinkable, and that the move would backfire on the politicians - after all, the reason why successful Roman and Chinese emperors DIDN'T use those tactics on their true enemies, is that an unexpected victory would give the rival more popular support, and exile not only consolidated the opposition, but allowed the opposition to organize and gain strength out of easy range of spies and easy constraint.

The next day seemed to crawl for Alex, as Dana made some sort of secret plans with Captain Komodo, and Sean had a date with Marie planned. It seemed everyone was busy, save Alex and Noel. Or, at least, that's what Alex thought.

"Noel, where are you going? I thought we were going to stay in and watch some of my anime?"

"I have to go see Uncle Rolf about something."

"Can't it wait until the last visitation call, tomorrow?"

"No, but it shouldn't take long. Warm up that cranky old VCR, and get the Dirty Pair tapes out. I'm in the mood for random acts of destruction." She teleported out of the room before he could respond.

She reappeared outside Southern Cross HQ, where Rolf had just arrived from listening to Bowie's music from the 15th's parking lot.

"Noel, what are you doing here?"

"The same as you, Uncle Rolf; to give a warning to our least-favorite SPOOK," she punned, referring to the acronym of Zand's think-tank.

"Why, Noel? This could be dangerous."

"I know, but I've faced him before... Well, Karen has, anyway."

"Karen? What does she have to do with this?"

"I'm surprised you hadn't noticed by now. I'm not the original Noel Freeman; Karen was. It was her use of her psi powers that caused her to grow into an adult, while freeing Dana and herself from Zand's labs in 2017. She made me to keep Mom and Dad from freaking out."

"What powers does she have, and do you have them?"

"Teleportation, telekinesis, telepathy, and more that I've never tried. They are our legacy from the nature of Karen's conception, in a dimensional fold. I only recently had my powers awakened, by a message from Karen sent via Carpenter. Zand is as scared of my powers as he is of you. The only reason he never tried to kill me before now, is that he didn't figure out who Karen was, either, and thought I had full control over my powers."

"Why do you want to confront him, now?"

"The same reasons you have. The end of the war is coming very soon, one way or another. I want Zand to know exactly what will happen to him if he tries anything with Dana."

"Then, let's go in. I'm glad to know you're capable of protecting Dana, should something happen to me."

Twenty minutes later, they were standing in Zand's office, watching the door open, having bypassed his security systems with Noel's powers.

"Don't turn on the light, Zand. Just sit down and listen," Emerson whispered coarsely. "We won't be staying long."

"We?"

"Rolf and I, Zand." Noel stepped out of Emerson's shadow.

Zand shut the door, but continued to stand. Emerson chose to take the initiative.

"I'm leaving in the morning; you probably helped engineer it," Emerson sighed. "I just wanted to say something to you before I leave -" Suddenly, Emerson sprung at Zand, gripping the scientist's neck as tightly as a vise, before the latter could react. Emerson's voice grew much stronger as he shouted into the face of the man he was lifting up to his eye level.

"You WILL leave Dana and Noel alone while I'm gone; do you hear me? If I come back to find you've tried anything - ANYTHING, I'll kill you myself, if Noel doesn't beat me to it." He tightened his grip.

"And, if you try anything against Rolf," Noel added, "I'll do to your head what I'm doing to your toy over there." She glanced over at the crystal ball by Zand's desk. It began to glow a dull red; then, it detonated, sending glass shards throughout the room, with telekinetic shields protecting Rolf and Noel from the shrapnel. "Do you understand?"

Zand nodded, as Emerson relaxed his grip before throwing Zand into the sofa next to the door.

"I know you've been keeping tabs on Dana through back-channels and informants," Emerson stated, returning to his earlier whispering tone. "Stop it at once, and don't do it again. If I have to pay you another visit, it will be to dismiss you from the ranks of the living." Emerson stepped to Noel's side. "Noel, get us out of here; the stench is making me ill."

Noel put her arm through her foster father's, and teleported them back to the parking lot, beside his limousine.

"General," Noel asked formally, now being in the presence of his driver, who was caught off-guard by their sudden reappearance, "I'm a little weak from our theatrics back there. Could you give me a ride back to my barracks?"

"Sure, Noel. I'm proud of what you said in there. Now, could you explain to me in better detail what you were saying earlier about yourself and Karen?"

"It might be better if you ask her yourself. If my visions are correct, she is on her way back to Earth, as we speak."

"Is the entire REF coming back?"

"No; just my family and a unit of mixed forces aboard the Korra'ti; that's all I can tell. They aren't precise, these visions. I don't know how large the military force is, or even when they'll arrive. It could be tomorrow, next week, or years from now. Remember how Carpenter lost all those years? The Korra'ti folded out of harm's way last year; it may take a similar time to return. It's quite possible we'll all be dead by then."

"I see. Thanks for telling me, anyway."

"Well, you definitely meet the criteria of 'Need to Know'. I'd just rather Karen fill you in on my past, as I still don't know the half of it."

When Noel returned to the barracks, all was not quiet. First, Sean was in a deep funk. He had been waiting to take Marie out on the town, when a girl he hadn't seen in two years practically molested him in public as Marie was coming out the door to meet him. At the same time, Dana's matchmaking attempt turned into a comedy of errors, as Nova thought Komodo's advances were from Zor. Both problems then collided head-on, when a distraught Marie tried her hand at demolition derby, only to have Dennis Brown, another squadron commander, take her place in the police chase, resulting in Nova falling for the self-sacrificing pilot instead of Komodo or Zor.

"Welcome back," Alex called to her as she entered the lounge, and she sat at the bar next to him. "You missed out on all the action."

"Not really; I picked up on it, trying to find out why Sean is so depressed."

"You know, you should be careful about that. People may not appreciate it."

"I know, but some things people practically broadcast. Tell me; do you think he really loves her?"

"Yeah, I think he does. He's never been this tore-up over a woman before. Hell; he's never been this DEDICATED to a woman, before."

"Good. Then, I'll try to get a message to Marie in the morning, to explain what really happened."

"Do you think she'll believe it?"

"It won't hurt to try."

**4 June 2030**

That morning, the mission departed. Sean tried to catch Marie, but failed. However, Noel could see Marie opening the note she'd found in her helmet that morning, and Marie's features softened as the gantry elevator's doors closed. Satisfied that things were back on course for the two, she helped carry the heartbroken Sean to shelter.

**Chapter Four:**

"In his notes from 2017, Zand referred to Dana as 'The One'. Maybe so, originally, but someone had other plans, revolving around Noel and myself. Then again, I think Noel took the Babylon 5 parallels in her diary a bit too seriously, especially the Anla'shok oath 'We live for the One, we die for the One."

- Karen Freeman, **The Plane Truth**.

**4 June 2030**

One of the more interesting features of ASC life was the base rec hall. It was a combination arcade, bar and restaurant, where rank was (usually) ignored the second one walked through its doors. While not a true substitute for trips into town (MPs were part of the staff), it did provide enough entertainment possibilities to act as an alternative when alert levels were high. The fact that, while there was a three drink limit, those drinks were free, also helped.

The one located between the barracks of the 15th ATAC and its fellow units of the 5th Mechanized Division had only been open two months, and it had fielded constant business ever since, thanks to the heightened hostilities. If it had opened a year earlier, Alex mused, things might have turned out very differently. It had been the lack of such a facility that had led Alex, Noel, Dana and Bowie to accept that fateful "make-busy" patrol that ended in their first face-to-face encounter with Zor, in the Macross ruins.

Today's activity appeared to be centering around the arcade, so he drifted that way.

"What's going on?"

"Corporal Nichols is setting a new record on the simulator."

"Louie? Get real. He has trouble hitting the urinal, let alone setting record scores."

"Then explain how he's beating Dana."

"This, I've got to see..."

Alex worked his way to the back window of the cockpit simulator, which was the base non-moving model common in arcades to stimulate interest in military service. Louie was vaporizing the generic Battloids (the game dating from before the war) left and right, while using the weapon controls only to fire, not to aim. And, when he missed, the weapons auto-fired to cover the likely positions of the missed target.

"How's he doing that?" Alex asked Dana.

"Beats me. It has something to do with those glasses." Alex only then noticed that Louie had swapped his trademark goggles for a high-tech visor. Suddenly, the game flashed a congratulatory message, as it came to a halt.

"I don't believe it; a perfect score!"

"Believe it, Alex," Louie said, stepping up out of the cockpit. "I call it my Visual Trace Firing System. It aims the guns by reading my eye focus, then all I have to do is pull the trigger. You could call it my 'pupil pistol'."

"Could I see it?" a voice asked, from behind Alex.

"And you are?" Alex asked back, turning to face the inquirer.

"Major Cromwell, Robotech R&D, and this is Major Gervasi. We're on base for the technical upgrades to the mecha. I think we can use the corporal's system in simulation training; more, eventually. We'll help you upgrade it and give you advice, assistance and technical support. Is this the only copy?"

"N-No..."

"Fine. If you don't mind, we'll have a look at this one, then. Can you be in my temporary office tomorrow at 1300 hours?"

"S-s-sure..."

"We're looking forward to working with you." Cromwell nodded to Gervasi, and the two left.

"Good going, Louie," Dana congratulated, mussing the corporal's hair.

"It was nothing..."

"By the way," Alex interrupted; "have either of you seen Noel?"

"No," they answered in unison.

"She's disappeared on me again. I hope she's all right."

"Jeez, Alex; you're starting to sound like Dana looking for Zor - OWW!" Louie's exclamation was the result of Dana's kicking him in the shins.

"Seriously, Alex; I haven't seen her since lunch. Where could she have gotten to?"

"Doctor, the Invid Nebula is just as much a threat as the Tyroleans. Shouldn't we warn Emerson of the danger?" Miles Cochran asked Zand.

"Do you think I expunged all mention of the Invid, the Matrix, and the Flower of Life from every record but our own, just so you could go blurting it out to Leonard and his military imbeciles? Or to the fools at UEG? Have I wasted so much time on you? Confrontation is the whole point of the Shapings, don't you see? War is the whole point. Do you think Sterling's latent powers will be awakened by anything short of the Apocalypse? The Protoculture's Shaping of history is moving toward a single Moment, and that moment is near; I can feel it. I shall take ultimate advantage of that Moment. Nothing will be allowed to stop it."

"I just thought..."

"You just thought to interfere with the Shaping so that your brother would be out of danger? Don't look so surprised! Why do you think all your attempts to get him a transfer failed? I was giving you a test of loyalty. You wavered, and so you failed." Zand turned to the others present. "Kill him."

"I don't think so." Noel stepped from the shadows, and threw her hand up at Zand's pawns. "Stay where you are." Confused, the minions hesitated. "I'm getting tired of this, Zand. Cochran, come to me."

One of Zand's minions attempted to stop Cochran, but Noel flung the antagonist back with a telekinetic bolt, adding a flourish of her hand for effect. The others made no attempt to stop their former colleague.

"So, Noel; you plan to interfere with the Shapings as well. You know you are doomed to fail."

"You do not fully understand the Shapings yourself, Zand. That failure will be your downfall. The only reason I am here is that I sensed Miles freeing himself from your grasp."

"And what will you do with him now?"

"It's none of your business, anymore. Do your little flunkies know your secret? Do they know that there are three people that you dare not trifle with? Oh, I'm sure they know about Rolf and me, but did you ever tell them about Alex? Why do you think your attempts to silence Alex always failed, even before he became my lover? There is something in store for him; something neither of us have any power over. He has read the texts long made forgotten by you; he has found the true relationship between Dana, myself, and Zor. Do anything to any of us, and you shall die. You know it to be true, don't you?"

Zand blanched, and Noel took that as a 'yes'. With that accomplished, she teleported, taking Cochran with her. They arrived in an empty room, that had the musty smell of age, but was not of any style construction Cochran was familiar with.

"Where are we?"

"Someplace safe, beyond the reach of Zand," she replied. "Go through the door, and ask to speak to Roy. Tell them that Karen sent you, and you will be kept safe here."

"Thank you. I don't know how I can ever repay you."

"Just live your life as a free man; that will be reward enough." She stepped away from him, and disappeared in a field of shimmering lights, reminiscent of fold reaction energy.

Cochran opened the door, and entered his new life.

Noel teleported back to the barracks, exhausted. Strangely, she had no memory of where she'd been, or what she'd been doing, since a few moments before her initial teleport from the barracks. She made her way past Dana and Louie's "science project" in the ready room, and stumbled wearily to her and Alex's room. She was asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.

**6 June 2030**

Emerson's fleet had made its own luck, using an experimental non-Protoculture fold system to create an artificial singularity that destroyed all the escort cruisers of the Tyrolean fleet, which had been sent en masse to attack him. This set the stage for an assault the next week, using nearly all of the space-capable assets of the Southern Cross. Thanks to Cromwell's team, this now included the ATAC units, as the tanks had been upgraded with sealed cockpits, propellant tanks, and enhanced combat controls. Some of the squadron was upset that the upgrades had been made without their being told.

"If you don't like it, tough; you're military, so you should be used to it by now. The tanks are equipped with tutorials and dry-fire practice programs, so everyone board their tanks, and practice from now until lunch."

Everyone spread out to their individual mecha, save Dana, who decided to supervise the training for a while, and see how the new systems worked.

"Good, you're here," someone said from behind her. Dana turned, and found Dennis Brown standing there. "Looks like it's gonna be fun, doesn't it?"

"You're coming along on this party?"

"Gotta prove I'm not a screw-up, don't I?" Dennis relied, smiling. "Hey, Louie! Congratulations; I heard you're the one who dreamed up the new targeting systems. They managed to make just enough for the Monument forces."

"You mean, the simulator gizmo?" Dana asked.

"They told me it was for simulation training," Louie replied, disgusted.

Sean, evidently, was enjoying the new system. "First round kill every time!"

"Shut up, Sean!"

"I'm sick of this!" Bowie snapped. "There are humans like us in those Bioroids, and they're not our enemies! And we're not theirs, can't you understand that?"

Dana went to calm Bowie down, but was stopped short by the sound of a plasma cutting torch igniting behind her. Louie was the one with it, trembling with anger.

"Those bastards from R&D never even asked me; they just lied, picked my brain, and did what they were planning to do all along. Like WE'RE the clones; like THEY'RE the Robotech Masters!" He fired the torch into the wall, melting the panel.

"Now, wait a minute, Louie!" Alex said forcefully, but evenly, "Surely you didn't think the device would STAY a training device? It would be useless to train with, unless the mecha had them too. Your work perfecting it only made it more quickly implemented. It's a testament to your skill that they decided to waive the simulator trials, and give it to us for use in the next battle."

"Louie, the balloon's already up," Angie added, inching toward the berserk corporal. "Emerson and the rest go, whether we do are not. All you can do this way is give the goddamn aliens a better edge."

Dana surprised everyone by her response.

"Go ahead, Louie; flame 'em all. If you can't do it, I will."

"They lied to us."

"I know, Louie," she said softly, taking the torch from him. She turned toward her own tank.

Angie stepped in front of her, blocking her path. "You swore an oath!"

"So did they, Angie; so did they." She tried to step around Angie, only to be blocked by two more figures - Noel and Zor.

"Dana, listen to us," Noel pleaded. "Put down the flamethrower. Two wrongs won't make a right. Zor, tell her why."

"I understand this war from both sides; maybe I'm the only one who ever will," Zor stated. "And humanity mustn't lose, IT MUST NOT LOSE; do you understand? I know what a Bioroid clone feels when it dies. I've died before, and will again, as we all will. The difference is in how we'll LIVE, don't you see? And for that, I'll fight, and even kill, if needed.

"Dying is a natural thing," Zor continued, softer; "sometimes it's even a mercy. But living as a slave - that can make dying seem like a miracle." He closed in on Dana, and she pointed the torch toward the ceiling. He took it from her, and shut it down, as Louie ran from the motor pool in despair. "The war must end, but the Robotech Masters MUST NOT WIN." He dropped the torch, putting his hands on Dana's shoulders.

Noel came up to them, and put her arms around them. "Please, for all our sakes; remember that there is nothing that the human heart can't overcome. My sister once told yours, Dana, that sometimes some must die, for others to live. Sacrifice may be necessary for us to win, but we must not be afraid, or give in to despair. You're right, Zor. We must win, even if it costs us our lives."

**Chapter Five:**

"When Dana told me what she'd found, I realized that the Masters had actually begun to put their eugenics program's final phase into operation. I'm glad that they waited as long as they did, because the war would have happened a lot differently, had they started it when the Zentraedi fleet was lost."

- Dr. Alex Tyler, report sent with Tyrolean evacuation fleet to Drs. Lang & Grant, September 2030

**10 June 2030**

The hours before launch had been filled with impatience, replaced by tension once they actually boarded the shuttles. As the pull of natural gravity lessened, and artificial gravity took over, the butterflies in their stomachs seemed to grow into Mothras. It would take nearly a day for the fleet to reach its objective, and every imaginable way to pass the time was attempted by one person or another. Of course, the lack of privacy hampered Alex and Noel's chances of what they would have preferred to be doing, ala the old peace activist slogan.

The call to board mecha had barely been made when news came of the destruction of the transport carrying the 12th ATAC, after the 13th had already launched from it. As for their own shuttle, the 14th had drawn first launch, and soon found their way to the deck of the ship below. As the 15th was about to launch, word came of a major hull breach on another ship, so they were diverted to try to capture and hold the hole, to allow a boarding action. After a quick pass over the hole, the 15th took positions in their tank mode behind Dana, for final approach. This was quickly broken up by the arrival of Red Bioroids - lots of them, of a type new to them.

"New targets ahead."

"Roger, Lieutenant. I've got a bad feeling about this."

"Cut that out, Alex!"

"Who's joking? I think it would be advisable to increase our rate of closure."

"Alex, break left!" Noel shouted.

Alex practically turned his tank on its side, compared to its previous orientation, as a shot barely missed him. Eddie, on the other hand, wasn't as lucky, a shot hitting him in the thinly armored space canopy, and straight through the floor of the cockpit, causing the tank to explode.

"They got Eddie! Dan, Noel, match my descent! When we get down, we can cover the others in Battloid mode!"

"Gotcha."

Alex was soon down, and transformed, followed Dana, Noel, and the rest of the squadron. However, they found themselves surrounded, but at least with a defendable position. Alex tried to call in reinforcements, but to no avail.

"Any luck, yet?" Dana asked, between shots.

"Dennis' AJACS have taken a pounding, and are pulling back. No help there."

"Will we do?" a familiar voice asked, as another group of AJACS hit the Bioroids from behind.

"Marie, you're a sight for sore eyes," Sean exclaimed.

"We couldn't agree more," Dana added. "As much as we hate it, because of the chance they're using captured humans as pilots, we've got to go for head shots, folks. This new design's cockpit is the only vulnerable spot on them. Adjust your fire accordingly."

With the help of the Black Lions, they fought off the counter-attacking Bioroids, and finally neared the breach. However, the breach itself was heavily defended. Dana finally got through the to the command ship, and was patched through to Emerson herself.

"General, we're pinned down at the entrance gap by heavy Bioroid fire! Our advance has stalled, and request assistance ASAP. Over." There was a pause, then...

"Attention, Earth forces on Target Delta! Clear a path; repeat clear a path. We are going to attempt to widen the hull breach with a ram."

"Did I just hear what I thought I heard?"

"Guess so, Alex, 'cause here comes the Tristar. Everyone, fall back 200 meters!"

The Tristar hit the larger ship squarely in the ruptured region, making the hull breach larger, and destroying several Bioroids in the process. The AJACS took advantage of the situation to retreat back to the Tristar, having used up their missiles and most of their reaction mass. When the ship pulled clear, the 15th ATAC was left as the only ASC element still on the enemy vessel.

"Let's do it, Fifteenth! Follow me!" Dana yelled, leading the charge for the hole. Of the twelve remaining squad members, only eight made it in - Dana, Alex, Angie, Noel, Louie, Bowie, Sean and Zor. Tensen had retreated to the Tristar, having taken major damage, while the other three were killed in the charge for the hole. Once inside, the 15th's link to the fleet went down, as they had before, so they had no way of knowing that the other three of the Masters' ships were coming to the aid of the damaged one, forcing the ASC fleet to retreat.

The next hour was filled with something more closely akin to door-to-door fighting, though now with the humans as the attackers - a reversal of the role the Spartas Hovertank was originally created to fill against Zentraedi aggressors. In the midst of it all, Zor suddenly stopped, and run off on his own. Angie and Dana chased after him, returning a half-hour later, having shaken off their pursuers.

"Where's Zor?"

"He's turned traitor, Alex."

"Are you sure, Angie?" Noel asked.

"He shot at us, Noel, if that's any indication," Angie replied indignantly. "Strange as it may seem, it almost seemed as if he was trying NOT to hit us."

"He's being mind-controlled again."

"How do you know?"

"Angie, there's something you guys need to know, that Dana, Alex and I have been keeping from the rest of you. You all know about my discovery that I'm half-Zentraedi, like Dana. Unlike her, I have mental powers that I don't completely understand yet, like telepathy. After you told me what happened to Zor, I tried contacting his mind. He's fighting for his own existence right now, against the people controlling him. It was his resistance that made him miss when they forced him to fire on you."

"I find this talk of 'powers' hard to believe."

"Any more than aliens identical to humans, fifty years ago? Or jets and tanks that can turn into robots? You've all witnessed indirectly my powers, from my escape with Alex from Zor's hospital room, to the night I scared Sean by using telekinesis on Louie's Bioroid model. I just wish that the powers were more useful here, but the entire population here is at least telepathic, and that causes a lot of background interference when trying to scan for an individual, like Zor."

The others looked at Noel strangely, trying to assimilate the news. Dana chose to cut it short.

"Now that you've got that off your chest, I think its time for us to hide our mechs, and proceed on foot. We're going to have to blend into the populace and find their command center. If you find it, or don't find anything within twelve hours, return here. If we do find our objective, we'll regroup, take the tanks, and destroy or capture it, if possible."

After hiding the tanks, they hopped on a conveyer that took recycled materials back into the city section. Once there, they tried to blend in, but Sean was too much of a show-off, and got waylaid by a triad of clonehealers, blowing their cover. In their escape, the group split onto three sections, with Angie and Sean going one way, Alex and Noel another. Alex and Noel returned to the street after acquiring some nondescript robes from an empty dwelling.

"What now, Noel?"

"We could try to find the command center, or we could locate Musica."

"Let Bowie find Musica. Do you have any idea where Zor is?"

"Barely; he's about a kilometer away."

"If we get him out of here, would he revert to his old self?"

"Depends on what you mean by that."

"Like how he was on Earth."

"Yes. The Masters are barely in control of him as it is."

"Let's go get him, then."

They walked through the streets of the false Tiresia for a couple hours, taking in the sights. Finally, they came to a guarded structure.

"Halt, clones. Civilians are not permitted in this sector," the two clones said in unison, lowering their weapons.

"Noel, can you do something?" Alex whispered. "Noel?"

"I'm sorry, Alex," he heard in his head, as he quickly realized that she'd teleported from his side. "One of us has to stay free, and I'm the only one who can pass for a Tiresian. You would endanger both of us." It was then that the third guard clone of the triad hit him from behind, knocking him out.

"Alex, are you okay?"

Alex opened his eyes, looking up to find that Dana had his head in her lap, the rest of him stretched out on a bench. He sat up slowly, taking in his surroundings. At least Angie and Sean weren't around to see him in such a compromising position.

"Where are we?"

"We're in a holding cell. They brought you and Louie in unconscious, though he woke up before you. Bowie's here, too. At least, Angie, Sean and Noel are still free, so-" Dana was interrupted by the door to the cell opening.

"Don't think that I'll forget your face, slimeball, because I won't!" Angie growled as he was thrown into the cell, kicking and screaming. Sean, however, walked in peacefully, hands behind his head and whistling. The door slammed shut behind them.

"Angie; you okay?"

"Only my pride's hurt, Alex. The gang's all here, huh?"

"Everyone but Noel. With her powers, she's unlikely to be caught, unless they find her sleeping."

"She probably teleported back to Earth."

"She wouldn't do that, Angie," Dana replied, defending he cousin. "Besides, she probably doesn't have the range for it."

"I still don't like it."

"She's probably our only hope of busting out of here, so pipe down," Alex countered.

"Yes, sir; but it doesn't mean I have to like it."

"Since we're waiting for either liberation or execution, and it doesn't really matter what we say in here, let's compare notes," Dana suggested. "Alex, what did you and Noel see?"

"We got as far as the entrance to the Masters' chambers, where Noel skipped out on me, as I got clobbered. No other major targets spotted."

"Sean?"

"Angie and I were never able to shake pursuit, though evidently we served as a great distraction for the rest of you, from the questions they asked."

"The rest of us ended up in the clone healing, reprogramming and disposal units, and almost got caught. We ended up getting split up at that point. Bowie spent time with his girl, and she really does like him after all. Louie got as far as the computer center, before the computer's defenses got him. I went further into their medical section - perhaps further than I wanted. Alex, why would a society of clones have a nursery?"

"A nursery?" Alex thought about the information from Zor's logs about the dual role of the Zentraedi creation program. "Oh, God; they're actually doing it."

"Doing what?"

"Remember what I told you about the Masters' other reason for creating the Zentraedi, besides as their enforcers? It was also to determine the best pairings of genetics among the Tyrolean population. From what you've seen, they've started the final phase of the experiment, growing the next generation of Robotech Masters in vitro. Some of those babies in there could be your aunts and uncles."

"Unbelievable," Louie commented.

"But true, Louie. The only other alternatives are naturally born children, to be raised by the state, or that they are babies grabbed in the raid on Monument months ago, also to be raised by them as Tyroleans. Either way, we should have been prepared for this, but the information from Zor's ship on Tyrolean culture was suppressed by Lazlo Zand. In fact, the only reason I know of these things is that I stole copies of SPOOK's archives from Cochran's laboratory. If Emerson and Leonard had been given this information, the war could have been ended months ago; perhaps not even fought."

"Zand... Why does that name bother me?"

"The records indicated that you were a major study project of his when you were a child, Dana, until something made you unavailable to him. Maybe he did something to you in that time."

"But what?"

"Don't worry about it now. Let's worry about how we're going to get out of here."

**Chapter Six:**

"If you really want to, you can hear me say

Only if you want to, will you find a way.

If you really want to, you can seize the day

Only if you want to, will you fly away."

- Enya, "Only If..."

**11 June 2030**

Musica had went looking for Zor, after the guards told her that he had gone missing. Thanks to her contacts with Bowie, her memories of the relationship between her original and Zor's had reawakened, but only as a memory of something long past its day. Still, she felt obligated to try to find him, help him; for the sake of that ancient relationship. She left her sisters, without saying where she was going, or why; but then, she hardly knew the answers to those herself.

She first went to the area modeled after the neighborhood where the original Zor and Musica had shared many happy memories, and wandered its streets and alleyway, searching for Zor, who she thought would be drawn here as well. Each step brought back more and more memories from her previous life; memories the Masters had tried to suppress. Those memories led her to the entrance of an alley she felt compelled to wait at, but not enter; some deep irrational memory remained, but would not come into focus.

Minutes later, her patience was rewarded by Zor also finding his way to the alley. She approached him, and started to convince him that he needed to get under cover. But, before she could get him past his disorientation, the search parties found them, and they took him away. She went back to her sisters, to try to convince them to help, but they were only intent on returning to the old status quo, not helping her. She returned to the streets, trying to think of any way to help Bowie and Zor.

"Musica?" a voice similar to her own asked, out of the shadows.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Noel," the stranger said in perfect Tiresian, as she stepped out of the shadows. She was wearing a uniform like Bowie's, and had hair much like Musica's own. Unlike Musica, who had violet eyes, Noel's were a deep green that seemed bottomless. She was both eerily familiar and alien, at the same time. "I'm a friend of Bowie and Zor. I want you to help me free them."

Despite her wariness over Noel's decided non-Terran appearance, she felt that she could trust the stranger. "I was going to try on my own, but together we might have a better chance of success. But, before we start, can you tell me how you know me, and why I feel like I should know you, somehow?"

"I am half-Zentraedi. My mother was of the Marinoni series; that series of clone was made by combining two Tiresians' genetics, as part of the Masters' grand plan. One of those Tiresians was the original Musica. Effectively, I am your grandchild."

"How can you know this?"

"The man I love is a scientist; one of the humans who has followed in Zor's footsteps. He decoded Zor's secret research files from the old battle fortress. He's one of those being held with Bowie. We must free them, if we are to help Zor."

In the holding cell, things were getting desperate. Angie, Sean and Dana were at each other's throats, and the others were the only reason things hadn't turned into a free-for-all. Finally, the cell door opened, and they were told that they were being taken to be executed. As they we being led out, a driverless hovercraft rammed into the first three guards, while the rear three dropped like rocks, for no apparent reason. They looked around, to find two green-haired women running to them.

"Hi, guys! Miss us?"

"Noel!" Alex yelled, running up to her, picking her up and swinging her around in his arms. Bowie and Musica were also reunited, but more sedately.

"We have to hurry," Noel said, after being put down. "Zor's in danger!"

"Where do we need to go?"

"Follow me," Musica replied. "We have to move quickly, but quietly."

They picked up the guards, put them in the cell, and took their weapons. Musica then led them through a series of back corridors to the Memory Management complex. From an observation window, they watched Zor's treatment. They made their move when the indicator showed Zor's memory was completely restored.

They shot holes through the glass, then burst through it, firing at the guards. Louie and Angie pulled Zor from the machine, while the others held the scientists at gunpoint. Then, more guard arrived, and the situation deteriorated into a firefight. After a long minute of heavy fire, which the 15th miraculously survived unscathed, the way out was clear. They took the door in SWAT fashion, an found no resistance. They loaded everyone into the hovercraft the last batch of guards had used, and took off toward the recycling center.

"LOOK OUT!"

The hovercraft was nearing the area where they left their tanks, when one of the new Bioroids came around a corner just in time to be ran over by them. They had little chance to see how they had affected the Bioroid, as the hovercraft's controls became erratic. It bounced once, losing speed, then began a rollover.

"Everyone, JUMP!" Dana yelled, and everyone complied. The now-empty hovercraft rose, continuing the roll, then came down hard, exploding on impact.

"Louie immediately recognized where they were. "We're in the central control area!"

"Then, let's blow it, and get out of here - uh-oh..." Dana was interrupted by the sound of approaching Bioroid hovercraft. "Everybody, scatter!"

They all quickly hid in the loose spaces between a series of pipes that ran along one wall, making it in safely before they could be spotted by the trio of Bioroids that arrived. But, instead of leaving, they landed, and began to spread out, searching for the 15th.

Hiding in the shadows, Zor took the opportunity to seek answers. "Musica, why did the Masters send me to Earth in the first place?"

"You were sent to Earth as a spy," she whispered. "They planted a neuro-sensor in your brain. You weren't even aware of what you were doing when they engaged it, Zor."

"She's right," Noel added. "It was hidden well. It was like you had a split personality, with one only having partial access to the other, and the second not even aware of the first. Even I wasn't able to detect your problem until you were taken over up here. I know what it's like to have holes in your mind. Now that I know what your problem is, I can fix it - but we have to get out of here, first."

Suddenly, a throbbing siren filled the air, distracting the Bioroids.

"Musica, what's that sound?" Dana asked.

"It's a battle alert. Your forces must have returned to attack the fleet again."

"Then, it's time to make our move. We take out this control center, whatever it takes. Emerson won't stand a chance if we don't succeed. We go on three... One, Two - GO!"

Zor, Noel and Musica stayed back, while the others took on the Bioroids, two per mecha. The blasters weren't having much effect, until Louie used their only grenade to stagger the one he and Dana were fighting. This had the side effect of staggering the other two, through their mental link. Zor took off again, to find something more effective to use against the Bioroids, while Musica and Noel headed for the tower that housed the shield controls. Bowie and Angie managed to take out their Bioroid, so Bowie joined them, and together they ran up the tower steps as the other two Bioroids finally fell.

Unfortunately, a replacement trio of Bioroids showed up as they made their way back down to the main deck. Their captured rifles were depleted, and there was nowhere to run to. One of the Bioroids raised its arm to fire at them, only to have its arm blown off. Out of the side passageway came an old-style red Bioroid, shooting at the newer models already there. There was no mistaking the fighting style.

"Go get him, Zor!" Dana cheered. Zor damaged the triad with a long burst of shots from both the platform and the weapon drum, then jumped off the platform. The platform then crashed into the other Bioroids, taking them out in a chain-reaction explosion.

"Dana, you and the others go ahead; the Hovertanks are down that corridor. I'll stay here and delay any further pursuit."

"But, what about you?"

"Don't worry about me, Dana. I will stay here, and see that the Masters trouble Earth no more."

"But, Zor!"

"Go! I'll catch up with you later."

Having no other choice, the squad and Musica ran down the passage, and found themselves back in the recycling chamber. The Hovertanks were still were they left him.

"But what good will the tanks do us? There's no way we can reach the fleet on the tanks' thrusters."

"Don't you think I know that, Angie? I've got an idea; if you'll follow me to the next room, I'll show it to you."

"Whatever you say, Lieutenant. I just wish I knew what you have in mind."

Dana led them to the neighboring chamber, which was essentially an airlock full of junk. Dana pointed to a row of beat-up Bioroid hovercraft.

"Louie, can you get those things running good enough to get us to Emerson?"

"Lieutenant, are you crazy?"

"I don't want to hear it! I'm not talking about winning a race with them; we'll only need them for a few minutes. If we're not back to the fleet by that time, it won't make any difference."

Louie looked one of them over, and popped the hatch where the diagnostics readout was located. He'd found out a lot about the equipment helping Cochran, and gathering info for his models.

" I should be able to fix it, but I'll need help to do it quickly."

"Noel and I will help," Alex volunteered. "We have the most experience with alien technology. Dana, you pick two others to find the airlock controls, and the rest of you get to the tanks and guard us. You might need to help with some lifting with the tanks, too."

A half-hour later, six hovercraft were functional, and Dana had found the airlock controls. The rest of the hovercraft were total losses, at least in quick-fix terms.

"Dana, give me the best hovercraft, and Noel and I can double up our tanks on it."

"Sounds like it might work. I wonder how Zor's doing?"

"I don't know, but we can't wait any longer," Angie pointed out.

"Noel?"

"I'll try to contact him... He says that the Masters have transferred their command to a different ship, so he only has one more thing to do, then he'll join us in space."

"As much as I hate to leave him here, I guess we'll have to." She placed her hovercraft next to the hatch controls, boarded it, then hit the switch to open the hatch, after everyone was ready. As they hadn't depressurized the airlock, they blew out with the rest of the debris, losing themselves in it as if it had been a malfunction of the hatch. "Wait until the junk spreads out before you start up. We don't want to tip our hand too soon, or risk damaging these hovercraft more than they already are. Bowie, try to raise the fleet, while we're sitting here."

"I'm attempting to hail them right now..."Bowie's connection went quiet for a few seconds, then he switched back to the unit's tactical net. "I've got them. We'll barely be able to catch them; one of the transports is slowing down, so we can catch up. Dana, take over the link; I'm afraid they'll discover my passenger if I stay in contact with them."

"Understood. Okay, everyone; let's move!"

They were half-way to the retreating fleet when a flash lit up space behind them. The ship they had left minutes before was exploding, from the center out. Hundreds of small objects could be detected exiting the ship, as it slowly devoured itself. All the smaller objects converged toward the nearest undamaged ship of the Masters' fleet.

"Look at all the escape pods!"

"Any signs of Zor?"

"Not unless he's in one of the pods."

"You stupid alien. You said you'd catch up..." Dana was on the verge of tears.

"I'm truly sorry, Dana," Angie said, haltingly. "I-I know you were fond of him. And he liked you a lot, I could tell." Angie was not used to the type of words for the situation, so he changed the subject. "Sean, take over the fleet link for the Lieutenants; Alex has his hands full keeping both Battloids on that hovercraft."

Ten seconds later, Louie broke the silence that had taken over their tac net. "Lieutenant Sterling, I think you should check this out, behind us."

Dana switched to the Battloid's rear view sensor, and saw a small object emerging from the glare - a Bioroid on a hovercraft. "It's him!"

As he drew closer, they could see he was carrying his Battloid-mode Hovertank under one arm.

"Whaddya know;" Angie joked, "he even brought along a change of clothes."

"Fine by me, Sergeant," Alex added, "just as long as he isn't bringing any of his old drinking buddies along as well. By the way, Dana; there's something I've been meaning to tell you about Musica - she's your grandmother."

Dana's eyes practically bulged out of her helmet in shock, from hearing the news. "You're kidding, right?"

"Nope, cousin," Noel replied. "If those two get hitched, we'll have to start calling Bowie 'granpa'."

"Like hell you will," Bowie interjected. "Of course, if I have to spank you to make you quit, I'll have the right to."

"I'd like to see you try," Dana said, smiling. Bowie was the better boxer, but Dana and Noel were much better in classical wrestling and close combat drills. "Okay, let's knock off the chatter till later."

Zor finally caught up, and they boarded the transport with little further talk.

**Chapter Seven:**

"It's just a jump to the left..."

- "The Time Warp", from _**The Rocky Horror Picture Show**_

**13 June 2030**

It so happened that the ship that recovered them was heading back to Earth. Emerson and most of the space forces were heading to the Moon, specifically for Farside Base and its drydocks. The rest, including the 15th, were being sent back to Earth. Despite their space experience, which exceeded that of much of Emerson's force, they were still classified as primarily a ground unit, and were being sent back to guard Monument City.

Still, it was easy to see the logic of the move. The massive attack had left Monument with minimal defenses - under-armed Battloids and fighter pilots with more simulator time than actual flight time. Someone had to go back and defend headquarters. The real down side was that, if they had gone to Farside, Bowie and Noel could have gotten Musica to Rolf, and they might have been able to figure out a way to persuade the Masters into ending the conflict. But, on Earth, Musica would be in danger from the second they landed, as Leonard was beyond thoughts of a truce or even a cease-fire, and probably wouldn't even give them credit for destroying the ship, seeing how Zor was the one who did it.

So, naturally, the first thing that came up on the transport was the matter of getting Musica safely off the transport, and past the GMP. The really strange thing about this was that Angie seemed to be the person (other than Bowie) most concerned with her safety.

"We can't let the GMP get her! Remember what they did to Zor, and he was just a military officer! Imagine what they'd do to someone vital to the Masters' entire operation!"

"Our problem would seem to be that there's one too many of us," Louie stated.

"Noel, could you teleport Musica to safety?"

"No; I'd have to go with her, and wouldn't have the energy or an absolute fix for the return trip. I could end up missing the shuttle, or worse. Then again, who says it has to be Musica that leaves? I've got an idea, but I'll need some help."

"What kind of help?"

"For starters, my armor needs to be let out a bit; say, for someone about ten centimeters taller than me. Understand?"

"You know, that just might work..."

**14 June 2030**

Zor had been roughed up somewhat in his heroics in space, and had actually passed out from exhaustion shortly after they had boarded the shuttle. As a result, Alex confined him to sick bay, and took him to the hospital immediately after landing, bypassing Nova. The problem now was the rest of them getting by her.

"Welcome back, Dana," Nova said, a hint of jealousy in her voice. "I hear your team finished off the ship you brought down before; congratulations."

"It was mostly Zor's doing."

"Speaking of Zor, what was wrong with him?"

"Fatigue and stress, Alex says. I can understand why; we rescued Zor just before he was to be executed as a traitor." It was only a small stretching of what really happened, but it was what they'd agreed to say, to cover up the source of the injuries that resulted from his capture and brain manipulation. Besides, the scientists were to copy his restored memory, then kill him when they were through, so it was true, from a certain point of view.

"If he played as big a role as you said in the report you sent in, he must be their 'Public Enemy Number One' right now."

"I guess so; can we save the chat for later? I need to get back to barracks, shower, and change uniforms before going to the post-mission debriefing."

"Pardon me, Miss War Hero." Alarms were going off in nova's head, but she just couldn't figure out why. Dana was almost sounding the way she did when she was in trouble up to her armpits, but there didn't appear to be anything out of the ordinary. The squadron looked okay, but they all seemed to be walking on hot coals, figuratively.

The last two by her were Grant and Freeman. Noel seemed to be leaning on Bowie for support. This was not a totally outlandish idea, seeing how they'd grown up together, but slightly risque, considering they weren't blood relatives, and that Noel was engaged to Alex. Of course, Alex HAD left with Zor without so much as saying a word to Noel, so maybe something had happened to their relationship in space. Relationships in uniform, while no longer illegal (as they had been before the Global War), were hardly the most stable, especially when between an officer and a non-comm, and definitely when both were in the same unit. As she watched them leave, a strange thought went through Nova's mind. Noel seemed to be, well, taller than she remembered. But, that was ridiculous. Wasn't it?

An hour later, having used Alex's credentials to bypass their physicals (which he'd already done on the shuttle), the 15th arrived back at their barracks. Of course, Dana and Alex would barely have enough time to shower and change clothes before having to leave for their debriefing, but the rest would have the day off, barring alien attack. Considering that the squadron was at only half-strength again, they hoped it would be the first in a long string of days of light duty.

When they entered the ready room, they found their other two squad members playing rummy; Noel was beating Tensen badly. Tensen had aborted his attempt to enter the ship with them, and as a result beat them back to Earth by a full day. Noel, on the other hand, had teleported back to barracks while the shuttle was preparing for re-entry, to insure that the head count came out correctly.

"How did it go, Dana?" Noel asked, drawing a card. "Gin!"

"Worked like a charm, cousin. And, John; never play cards with a psychic. You'll never win." Everyone but John (who missed Noel's 'coming out', and thought she had gotten back to Earth similarly to him) laughed a little at that, though Noel gave Dana a 'Who, me?' look. "Now, Noel; quit fleecing the rubes, and help me get our 'grandmother' out of your armor."

When Tensen saw Musica, he giggled a bit as well, Noel having at least had the courtesy to fill him in on the non-psychic aspects of the whole sordid mess while waiting for the others to arrive.

"Lieutenant, you wouldn't happen to have any other maternal relatives around, by any chance?" he asked, then ducked under the table as seven helmets and a bar stool were thrown in his direction - the latter by telekinesis. "Just kidding - Jen would do worse to me than that, if I'd really meant it."

**Chapter Eight:**

"Doesn't it consume your soul, making you lose control..."

- "Jealousy", from the 1980s cartoon series _**Jem and the Holograms**_

**14 June 2030**

"Here; let us take a look at you." Dana and Noel were sitting on the former's bed, as Musica was trying on some of Dana's civilian clothes.

"But, these garments expose my legs."

"With legs like yours, Musica, I wouldn't let that bother you. See for yourself, in the mirror."

"I know you never looked as good as she does in that dress, Dana."

"Don't remind me. Why is it, whenever I wear something like that, it makes me look about ten years old?"

"I don't have that problem, so maybe you inherited your looks from your father's side."

"You..." THWAPP! Dana hit Noel over the head with a pillow, and a pillow fight almost erupted in front of a confused Musica, before Bowie interrupted by knocking on the door.

"Is she ready yet?"

"Come on in," Dana replied, tossing the pillow against the headboard. "What's the verdict?"

Bowie stood there for a while, then said "I'll think I'll write a song about it."

"I guess that's an affirmative," Dana sighed. "Young love; isn't it grand?" The video phone rang, changing the subject. Dana answered it, blocking off the rest of the room, just to be safe. "Lieutenant Sterling here."

Dante appeared on the screen. "Zor's being released in a little while. What do you want me to do with him?"

"Let's see; spandex and a ribbon tied around his -"

"Lieutenant!"

"Just kidding," Dana smiled. "Anyway, both our forces and theirs will be busy for at least another day, regrouping, so let's go celebrate our safe return."

"Sounds interesting. Where's the party?"

"Get Zor over to the Moon of Havana, by eight. We'll meet you there."

"Roger, Lieutenant. We'll be there."

"Lieutenant Satori?"

"Yes, Corporal Swenson?"

"Could I have the evening off? Some of my friends just came back from the strike force, and I was hoping to go to their victory party."

"I'm sorry, but..." Nova started, then remember. Doesn't Swenson have friends in Dana's unit? They're the only unit that would have a reason to celebrate the latest debacle. "That is, SURE, you can have tonight off, but you still have to remain on call. Where will I be able to reach you?"

"The party's at the Moon of Havana, ma'am, from twenty hundred until midnight."

"Thank you, Corporal. Enjoy your night off." I know I will, Nova thought to herself.

"Nova, what are you doing here?"

"I heard about your little get-together, and figured there was room for one more at your table."

"Well..." Dana stalled a second; "Why not? We're all friends here."

"Really? I don't believe I've met one of your number."

"This is... Marcy, a friend of Bowie's. She's a musician, but not very talkative."

"Let me introduce myself, then. Marcy, I'm Lieutenant Nova Satori of the Global Military Police. Nice to meet you."

"Thank you," Musica whispered, nervous over the sudden attention.

"What have you heard from Dennis, Nova?" Dana asked, changing the subject.

"I-He's part of Emerson's force at Farside. He got through on a back channel, and said he was all right. Marie's been put in charge of Emerson's fighter wing, and Dennis is her new XO, and one of her squadron commanders."

In the background, Bowie ended a sad number, that made Musica think about her sisters that she had left behind. All she knew of their fates was that they had managed to escape the exploding ship.

"Oh, sisters, forgive me," she whispered to herself.

"No, Musica," Zor replied to the plea not meant for him. "Betrayal cannot be forgiven. I am beyond forgiveness, and so are you."

"NO!"

"We are traitors, Musica. Traitors!"

"Zor, SHUT UP!" Dana hissed, as he was blowing Musica's cover story to the winds.

"I don't care," Zor said, jumping out of his seat and leaving the club. Musica was crying, not really aware of her surroundings.

"There goes the party," Alex said, deadpan, trying to distract Nova. "Excuse us, will you, Nova? We're not in the mood for any more celebration."

The 15th and their guests stood up and left, leaving Nova with a perplexed look on her face, and holding the check.

"Sterling," she said, after settling the 15th's bill. "You're going to pay for this, and I just don't mean for the drinks." Suddenly, it hit her. Zor had called the girl "Musica", not "Marcy". Where was it she had heard that name before? "I'm going to have to have a long talk with Swenson, tonight."

The 15th had returned to barracks, where they found Zor in the courtyard, feeling sorry for himself. Angie went over to talk to him.

"Zor, what's bugging you?"

"I should have stayed on the flagship."

"What? Are you crazy?"

It was where I belonged."

"But, you would have died."

"That's exactly my point. Besides, then I'd merit a hero's funeral, isn't that right? A golden opportunity for you to display those precious emotions of yours - weeping for the fallen, and all that."

"Do you think I ENJOY losing friends?! Why, I-I..." Angie couldn't hold back any longer, and he pulled his fist back, then threw a punch that leveled Zor.

"Angie, calm down!" Dana yelled at her sergeant, as she put herself between the two.

"Get up, Zor. You ain't hurt - YET."

Zor staggered to his feet. "So, I'm to be happy, that I'm alive to go out and kill or be killed tomorrow?"

"Zor," Dana pleaded. "You think it's going to make you feel better to get us to hate you? It won't! Quit punishing yourself, and quit trying to get Angie to do it for you! Your past is over with! You have a new life to live! You had no control over your actions before; it's time for you to begin anew."

"Begin what? Dana, IT WILL ALWAYS BE THE SAME! This life, like all the others! That is my punishment! I'm so tired of it all! Just leave me alone. It's my problem, and I'll deal with it my own way!" He ran past the others, and into the night.

"Alex, I'm afraid for him."

"So am I, Noel."

"It's not the same way as you, Alex. The Masters restored ALL of his lifetimes' memories; not just this one's. His previous lives are destroying what he had built himself into, here on Earth. His memories are clashing, fighting for dominance. Most people would have gone insane by now from it, but he's still there, fighting it."

"Can you help him?"

"Only if he lets me, but I don't think that he will. He feels stuck in the role of the avenger of his first life, yet each further death draws him to clash with the original Zor's beliefs. He has to realize that vengeance for its own sake is self-destructive, yet he can't abandon the fight, either."

"Let's go inside; I'm getting a cold feeling in my gut, like we're heading for a disaster of mind-numbing proportions."

"Strange; I thought I was the only precognitive."

"That's not funny, love. I only wish I knew things would work out."

Noel remained silent, deciding that it would not be a good idea to tell him that she hadn't been joking, and that she, too, could sense the impending doom. Only, unlike him, she KNEW that it really was on its way, and even she would be hard pressed to make even the smallest difference in its outcome.

**Chapter Nine:**

"We're running with the shadows of the night;

So baby, take my hand, it'll be all right.

Surrender all your dreams to me, tonight;

They'll come true in the end."

- Pat Benetar, "Shadows of the Night" (1982)

**15 June 2030, 00:14**

"Corporal Swenson, reporting as ordered, ma'am."

"Good. Now, tell me what you know about this girl, Musica."

"Bowie's girlfriend? This was the first time I'd ever met her."

"Had you ever overheard members of the 15th ever talking about her, before?"

"A little; why?"

"Did they ever mention where she was from?"

"They said she was from out of town."

"I have evidence that says she's an alien spy."

"That can't be! She's too nice a person to be-"

"Swenson, you're losing your objectivity! Tell me; have you seen or heard ANYTHING that might confirm her origins as being alien?"

"Just what Zor said at the club. He said that 'they' were traitors to their people. But, if that's true, wouldn't that mean she isn't a spy?"

"It's not your position to make such judgements, Corporal. Until further notice, you are to stay with me in this investigation. This means no talking to your friends, no time off, NOTHING, until we apprehend this Musica person. If we were part of Dr. Zand's goon squad, we could go in and grab her now. However, we're not, and we need solid proof that she's an XT before we can arrest her for anything other than trespassing on military property, and that's only if Dana's stupid enough to be keeping her in the barracks!"

The audio-only telephone rang, cutting her rant short.

"Lieutenant Satori; I'm sorry, but I'm busy right now. Can you leave your name, and I'll get right ba-" She was cut off again, this time by the caller speaking.

"Her name is Musica. She's from the alien ship. You'll find her at the barracks of the 15th ATAC. I suggest you apprehend her as soon as possible, before she manages to-"

Just hold on a minute! Who is this?"

"Can't you tell, Nova?"

"Zor! Tell me; what's this all abo- Damn, he hung up! But, he gave us the probable cause to go after her. Alert one of the squads, and have them accompany us the ATAC barracks."

"Yes, ma'am," Jenny said, dejectedly.

Dana and Noel were trying to make more permanent plans for Musica's future. If she stayed at the barracks, she would be discovered eventually. However, in the hills north of the base, their sisters had left them some property, that included a survival bunker built into a cliff side. Alex had discovered the papers relating to it in the files from the lock box that had revealed Noel's age, but they hadn't had a chance to go looking for it.

They were discussing moving Musica there in the morning, as they approached Dana's room, where Bowie and Musica were waiting. Both cousins froze when they heard Musica's song echoing down the hall. The song transfixed them, as they saw images in their minds, evoked by the song. Visions of other worlds; other races; other times. Visions of a tripartite flower, and of Zor. The song ended, and the visions faded - but did not totally disappear from their minds.

"Dana, what was that?"

"I don't know. I heard her song, then everything went strange. I had those dreams again, only this time while wide awake."

"I did, too. I never have understood your dreams, until now. Do you have any idea how or why we shared them?"

"Maybe it was the music. Maybe, Musica's music affects us the same way it affects the clones on the ships. We may even have been remembering some kind of racial memory; memories that we share with her." Dana opened the door.

Musica was standing by the window, looking over at Bowie, who was sitting on the foot of the bed. The window was open, and the breeze from a rapidly advancing storm front made her hair stream in a way that could only be described as dramatic.

"Musica, were you singing about the Flower of Life?" Dana asked.

"Yes, I was. Why?"

"Bowie, do you remember those flowers we saw growing inside the ruins of the SDF-1? I think those were the Flowers of Life!"

"Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure. Could that be what this war is all about, Musica?"

"The Masters have not given it to me to know that for sure, Dana. But, for your world's sake, I hope you are wrong about the Flowers of Life. They will bring a great evil here, if they have blossomed."

Dana started to ask Musica to elaborate as to what that evil was, in comparison to the Masters, when Louie burst into the room.

"Guys! Nova and Jennifer are downstairs with a bunch of Gimps. They want to see you right now, Dana!"

"Noel, take care of Musica. C'mon, Louie; let's go see what 'Miss Stick-in-the-mud' wants."

After Dana and Louie left, Noel turned to Bowie and Musica. Her eyes dilated, and her voice became unsteady. "They've come for you, Musica. Zor has been having trouble assimilating his two lives. The memories that belonged to the original Zor, who was the lover of the original Musica, have been unsettling to him. It was out of a blind jealousy, that he neither understood nor recognized, that he betrayed you to the GMP."

"Why, I'll-"Bowie started.

"- do nothing, Bowie," Noel interrupted, handing Bowie the notepad with the map to the bunker. "Zor hates what he's done. He was not really aware of what he'd done, at least not the Zor you know. That Zor loves Dana, but won't admit it. It is the battle between the two unassimilated personalities that is responsible. Please, listen to me carefully. Five kilometers north of here, there is a bunker, with food, weapons, and transportation. Take one of the Cyclones, and go to the SDF-1 mound in the morning. I will meet you there. Go now, while you still have time." Noel fainted, falling onto the bed.

"Noel?" Getting no response, Bowie decided to do as he was told. "Musica, hurry! We must leave here."

"Where are we going?"

"Someplace safe - I hope." He stuffed the notebook into his uniform harness, then helped Musica out through the open window. He jumped down, to her side, and they ran into the night, their escape covered by the approaching storm.


	13. Book Three, Part Twelve

**Part Twelve: Exodus**

**Chapter One:**

"Ironically, the only ASC troops in the Monument Sector NOT to suffer catastrophic losses in the attack were those sent after the Tyrolean defector Musica. By the time they returned to Monument City, the city wasn't there anymore."

- Major Alice Harper Argus (Ret.) Fulcrum: Commentaries on the Second Robotech War.

**15 June 2030, 01:43**

"An unauthorized person in the barracks? What makes you think there's one around here?" Dana replied innocently to Nova's charges.

"Zor told me."

Immediately, all eyes turned to Zor. He was standing by the door, eyes to the ground. Everyone was upset, to say the least. But Alex and Dana had an inkling of why he did it, and Alex knew for certain that there was more than one motive involved, thanks to Noel. Dana turned back to face Nova, conceding Musica's existence.

"She saved our lives. When it comes right down to it, she saved the whole fleet, when she lowered the ship's shields."

"Tell it to the Brass; it's not for me to judge."

"Sure, Nova, while they're busy sticking electrodes in her ears and trying to light her up like a Christmas tree? Would it help to tell you that she and Bowie love each other? I always thought, as Gimps went, you two were the exception to the rule. But I see now that you fit in just fine with the rest of those swaggering stormtrooper wanna-bes!" Dana's line seemed to stab Jen in the heart, but Nova appeared unfazed. "C'mon; I might as well take you to her."

Dana started toward the stairwell, Alex falling in beside her. As they reached the stairs, the passed Zor. Dana could understand his motivations, but not why he had acted on them.

"Zor, you had a chance to do something good and kind for a change. It might have made up for a lot of the stuff that's torturing you so. Did you even think of that?" Dana's words hit Zor harder than her earlier rant at the GMP hurt Jen.

When they got to Dana's room, the GMP troopers rushed it in standard SWAT style. The balcony doors and windows were open, and a strong breeze was blowing into the room, laden with moisture. Noel was sprawled on the bed, unconscious.

"Noel!" Alex called out, bursting into the room, through the Gimps. In response to his voice, she began to stir.

"Unh... Alex, what happened?"

"Did you see where Bowie and Musica went?"

"No... The last thing I remember was Dana being called downstairs."

"Did they knock you out?"

"I... I don't think so. They were both in front of me, when everything went black."

"Don't get up, then. Just lay there and rest." Alex slowly checked her over, as Nova returned downstairs, and Dana watched Nova's goons search her room. After the entire barracks was searched, everyone gathered in the ready room.

"Don't expect us to do your dirty work for you," Dana snapped at Zor, who was still staring at the floor. "If you want to be punished, go do it yourself."

"At least he remembered his duty," Nova rebutted, shaking the rain off her cloak, after coming back in from a search of the perimeter. She didn't look pleased, as any tracks the two fugitives would have left were wiped out by the hard rainfall that occurred minutes after their flight. Zor took this opportunity to bolt, running past (almost over) Alex. Nova ignored him, and continued.

"Until further notice, Dana, I'm in command of the 15th; the call came in to my cell phone while I was outside. At first light, you and the others will begin search operations, apprehend Grant and the alien, and place them under arrest. Is that clear enough for you, Sterling? In the meantime, I'll be working with the JAG office with regards to your squadron's court martial proceedings, with your turning over the alien being a major consideration as to the severity of the charges."

"Nova, that won't be necessary."

"Who are you to be telling me what to do, Tyler?"

"Well, I'm the only person outside of SPOOK that knows what is really going on in orbit. If what I saw up there is any indication, there won't be anyone left to court martial by next week. The enemy has the manpower to defeat anything we can throw at them, and the disregard for human life, including their troops, to do so. All our final attack will do, is force them to destroy themselves in order to destroy us."

"I've had enough of you two. I'll see you in the morning, and don't even think of trying to sneak out tonight, because the barracks is under surveillance." Nova turned and walked out the door.

"Is it true, what you told her?" Dana asked.

"Unfortunately, yes. Both sides are so low on supplies and trained soldiers that they will commit everything to the next battle, and both sides will lose. But, that's not important right now. I need to talk to you about Zor. His recent self-damning streak isn't the only reason he finked on Bowie and Musica to the Gimps."

"What else could there be?"

"Jealousy. Before either were ever clones, the original Musica was the original Zor's lover, but she was killed when they tried to stop the Masters' rise to power. THAT was what Zor was remembering when he dove to protect you in the exercise room from the falling mirror; THAT was the reason he screamed Musica's name in the Space Tunnel, when he was actually rescuing you."

"Oh, no."

"In the new life Zor created for himself with the 15th, he has fallen in love with you, but is just too insecure to admit it openly. Noel picked that up, a long time ago. But, the memories he had of the original Musica were among those the Masters restored in orbit; memories that were the reason behind all of his actions from that point to his launch of the SDF-1 to Earth. Had we waited for the machine to assimilate his memories into a cohesive whole, we may not have had this problem. But, we didn't, and the old Zor and the new Zor are fighting for control in his mind. And it seems that the old one is winning, so far."

"Can we do anything for him?"

"I'm afraid not, other than trying to support him when his more recent personality is in control. Maybe tomorrow, we can get this mess straightened out before Ragnarok begins."

"Alex, thank you for telling me about Zor."

"I had to; Noel was going to, but is not in any condition to do so, now. I'm going up to get her from your room, and take back to our place to get some sleep for the search tomorrow."

"Leave the light on, when you leave. I'll try to turn in later, myself, but I've got a feeling that I'm not going to get any sleep tonight."

Bowie and Musica had used the storm for cover, making their way to the edge of the base. Ironically, they used the distraction of the call alerting the guard post to look for them to steal one of the guards' hovercycles. Instead of taking the road toward the Macross ruins, which the gate was on, Bowie took the bike cross-country, eventually turning up a ravine as the rain made visibility near zero.

Having studied the contour maps of the area an hour before, Bowie was able to put almost a half-kilometer between them and their pursuers. Now, according to the GPS on the bike, they were within 50 meters of their destination. He popped the cycle out of the ravine with a thruster burst, and stopped along the base of a cliff that paralleled the ravine. They got off the hovercycle, and grabbed the few possessions they had with them when they had to flee, including Musica's clothing of office. Bowie was then left with the problem of disposing of the bike, before the GMP caught up.

Then, he heard a rumble coming down the ravine below; the thunderstorm had caused a flash flood. Inspired, he set the bike's controls for use on water, idle speed, and pushed it over the ravine's lip as the water crested. The bike settled a half-meter above the churning waters, swept along by the wind currents generated by the rushing water. With any luck, the bike would be carried back down the ravine far enough to throw the pursuit off - if their pursuers didn't get caught in the flood themselves. Bowie hoped his attempt to evade capture wouldn't cost someone their life, from running blindly into the flood.

He returned to Musica's side, and they began searching the cliff face for the distinctive false rock that covered the electronic lock to the bunker. Within the hour, they found it, noting that their pursuers had either stopped, or lost their trail. Bowie had Musica hold the flashlight for him as he typed in the password given in the papers left to Noel: I-N-V-I-D. Part of the rock face recessed into the cliff, then slid to the side, revealing a chamber ten meters square. They hurried inside, closed the door, then turned on the lights.

Once safely inside, Bowie started the water and air purifiers, and did a quick inventory of the cabinets between the kitchen area and the beds. He pulled out towels and blankets, to dry off and get warm, and used the first hot water out of the purifier to rehydrate a liter of tomato soup. They stripped off their wet clothes, tossing them into the bunker's dryer, and fought of the chill from their exposure to the storm with the blankets and the soup. After finishing the soup, they lowered the lights, moved to the bed to keep each other warm, and express their love.

**Chapter Two:**

"Nations go to war over women like you;

It's just a form of appreciation."

- Sheena Easton, "Strut"

**15 June 2030, 10:21**

It had taken a fair amount of effort for Bowie and Musica to convince themselves to get up, and to leave the warm bed in which they'd consummated their relationship in, the night before. Still, they had a commitment to meet Noel at the SDF-1 site that afternoon, and they needed to keep it. They had to find out if those really were Flowers of Life in the wreck.

They got dressed, Musica choosing to once again don her muse regalia. The dress, while comfortable, was not something to wear in a place filled with weeds and briars. Bowie then went looking for the Cyclone Noel had mentioned; supposedly, it was an armed motorcycle that the REF had been working on when they left, but he had never seen one. What he found looked like an old RDF patrol motorcycle after a fatal run-in with a trash compactor. It had a manual sitting on top of it, and he skimmed through it as they ate a breakfast of reconstituted survival rations and orange juice. After finishing the breakfast, he turned to the part of the manual written in Zentraedi, handed it to Musica, and had her read the instructions to him.

"What does the first instruction say, again?"

"It says to make sure that there is clearance around the mecha, equal to its current length, in all directions. Then, press the middle button underneath the compass to start the unpacking procedure."

"Done - whoa!" The seeming block of junk unfolded into a motorcycle. "Would you look at that..."

"I am."

"Oops... that was a rhetorical question. What next?"

"Check the Protoculture meter."

"It reads near empty. Any ideas?"

"The fuel cell is located under the conventional fuel tank. The cell is removed by unlatching the cover, and twisting the cell to the left. Once you get it out, we can look to see if there are any cells in the storage locker, by comparison."

"Okay, it's out. So, that's what those cans are. Bring me one of these from the locker, please." He held up the empty cylinder.

"Here it is."

He stuck the new canister in, locked it, and checked the gauge. "Okay, we've got a full charge, now. Anything else?"

"Body armor. It says you need the body armor if you want to transform."

"Transform? Into WHAT?"

"It says Battle Armor mode. Do you know what that is?"

"Not exactly, but I have a good idea. How many suits of armor are there?"

"Four; two would appear to be styled for each sex, and they appear to be adjustable."

"Good; then we both can be armored. I'm not as good with a wheeled bike as I am with a hover bike, so I don't want you to get hurt. Besides, no one will recognize us in these get-ups."

They helped each other piece together and size the suits. An hour later, they rode off into the morning light towards the distant ruins, aboard Karen Freeman's old VR-038 Cyclone.

"Well, Dana, where do we start looking?"

"I'm not sure, Louie," she replied, winking at him. "Let's try north-west of the city first."

"How far north-west?"

"Oh, a nice leisurely drive. I'll let you know when we get there."

"Dana, I hate to bring this up, but we have our orders, and they're pretty airtight."

"Angie, we'll play this one by the book, like Nova wants. But, even the most complete book has margins. Besides, if what Alex said last night is right, we won't have to worry about the nature of our orders." the other ATACs stared at Alex, who only nodded to affirm what Dana had said. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's move out!"

As their three jeeps pulled out, they didn't notice Nova and Zor watching from separate vantage points. Within minutes, both were following the 15th. Behind them, another followed, in charge of a unit that could either help or hinder the 15th, if they so chose.

Bowie and Musica had been inside the SDF-1's interior for almost an hour, before the 15th showed up.

"Dana, I'm warning you; we're not going back."

"Who said anything about taking you back, dummy?"

"This place gives me the creeps," Alex broke in.

"As well it should," Noel replied, her voice taking a slightly different, almost far-off, tonal quality. "This is where all history has led, and where the future will be determined."

"Say what?"

"My friends, we have found the Matrix, the cause of the first two Robotech wars, and the catalyst for the last."

"What are you saying?" Dana asked, but before Noel could respond, her trance was interrupted by the arrival of Zor and Nova. Zor was in agony, for no apparent reason, but Nova was still in control of herself, not counting sneezes from the pollen.

"I'm here to take Musica back to headquarters."

"No, you're not."

"NO!" Zor howled. "This plant is responsible for my becoming the monster I am! I stole the secret of Protoculture from the Invid, and betrayed them. I was in turn betrayed by my contemporaries, and they became the Masters and Elders. But, I have broken free of their will at last! I thwarted them! And they brought me back to life as a clone, again and again, hoping that I would give them my great secret. BUT THEY WILL NOT HAVE IT!"

Zor's rant was starting to scare even Angie.

"I don't know about that, Zor, but Musica says that this is something the Invid want, and they're on their way!"

"We can sort all of that out later," Nova said calmly, trying to gain control of the situation, that was appearing to deteriorate more by the minute. "Musica is still my prisoner, and I'm taking her back with me."

"Sorry, Nova," Zor said, suddenly coherent again. "You're not taking Musica anywhere."

**Chapter Three:**

"We're fightin' for the Gods of War

But what the hell we fightin' for?

We're fightin' with the Gods of War

And I ain't gonna fight no more..."

- Def Leppard, "Gods of War"

**15 June 2030, 13:42**

"I expect you all to remember your oaths of service," Nova said, looking at each of them.

"I'm not part of the military anymore," Bowie said to her.

"General Emerson is, and HE'S fighting with everything he's got to save this planet."

"I don't care! Musica's our friend - not a prisoner, or an enemy. Not ours, and not yours either, understand? Why can't you leave us alone?" As if on cue, the 15th drew up around the couple, shielding them.

"Is love so difficult for you to understand, Nova? Why do you always have to be so cold-blooded?" Dana asked, the situation fraying her nerves.

"It's my duty, that's why. And for me, Earth comes first, and the human race. I'm taking Musica back, whether you like it or not. I don't want to use force, but I will if I have to."

"What happened to all that talk last year, Nova? Honor. Freedom. Defending human ideals and our way of life. Musica and I are trying to bring those to her people. You said you could be a friend to anyone who valued those things. Well, were those just words, or do you really have it in you to be a friend, and try to live up to those words?"

Nova was caught off-guard by Bowie's bringing up of that conversation. Part of it had been to try and get a source of information inside the 15th for Colonel Fredericks, but the rest had been as a favor to General Emerson, to try to become someone Bowie could turn to, in the worst case of Dana and/or Noel getting killed in battle. It also brought back memories of the last days of New Macross. Noel, sensing this, used her powers to bring back the memories full-force.

"Nova, remember Claudia, and how much you wanted to be like her? Would she wanted you to do this?" Noel said softly, approaching Nova slowly.

"I'm... I'm a friend," Nova said, haltingly. Zor took her pistol from her hands, and Noel embraced her, using her powers to calm her mind.

"But - isn't she one of the Masters? Zor, they did such terrible things to you."

"She is a Muse; the very soul of harmony. She is not one of the Masters, but she is vital to their schemes. From the Protoculture -" he gestured to the Flowers of Life, "all life in their society grows. Once the clones have been quickened, it is the playing of Musica and her sisters that keeps them healthy, docile, and obedient. It tells them, in effect, who they are."

"And now, she's learning to play the songs of Humankind."

"We have to leave quickly. I radioed for a flying squad of troops and Battloids; it will get here any minute."

"Actually, Nova, we're already here."

"Jen, what are you doing here?" Tensen called up from the cavern floor.

"Your boyfriend's got a good point, Corporal," Nova added. "I thought I'd confined you to barracks."

"Nova, you never told that to anyone but me, so they still had me on call. I answered your call for assistance, and I brought along a squad that had been under surveillance on sedition charges, from questioning strategy publicly. After we scanned their gear for bugs, I briefed them on what we were told about Musica last night. They're willing to protect her, if she acts as a means of bringing the war to a close, without further bloodshed. Is she willing to do this?"

"As I said, she is vital to the Masters," Zor replied. "Their parody of a society cannot function without her music, combined with that of her sisters. If they can't get the Protoculture that will allow them to clone a replacement for her, then they will fall. By staying free from them, she will meet that request, by default. But, only if she stays free, as being a prisoner could make her an unwilling martyr for the clones."

"I understand, and I think they would, too. But, eventually, someone might discover my duplicity with the choice of squad. We'll try to stall, but I can't guarantee anything."

"Nova, the others won't know you've sided with us," Zor pointed out. "We must move quickly now, but with caution."

"Noel, can you teleport us out of here?"

"Not safely. I've never teleported more than a few hundred kilograms, which would be myself and two or three others. I'll keep that idea open, though."

"Teleportation? THAT'S how you got Musica past me when you returned."

"Not exactly," Dana replied. "Noel teleported back, and Musica wore Noel's armor back through the cordon, so that we wouldn't have to strand her with Tensen, in order to make the head count work out. But, We'll have to come up with an alternate plan - Polly!" Dana dropped down to one knee, and picked up a strange-looking animal, that looked like a paisley poodle with horns and fangs.

"What is THAT?" Alex asked, staring at the obviously alien creature.

"You know that thing?" Angie added, as it began licking Dana's face like a puppy.

"Only all her life," Bowie answered for Dana. "Her godfathers introduced her to him. I never believed Dana and Noel's stories about him until now. I, umm... always thought he was imaginary."

"A Pollinator, yes;" Zor said, looking at Dana and the creature. "And now you know what he pollinates." All the while, he was thinking to himself Dana, who ARE you, to be tied to the Protoculture this way?

"She is part of the Shaping's grand plan, Zor," Noel answered his unspoken question aloud. "It is part of her destiny."

Dana looked up, wondering what all the fuss was. "What are you all staring at? Let's go!"

"Go where?"

"The top of the mound. Polly says something's going on outside, and we should see what it is."

Twenty minutes later, they were gathered together on the top of the false mesa, while Jen returned to the perimeter, and moved her Battloid to the mound's base. Alex was the first to notice.

"Dana, look at the city!" Clouds of black smoke rose from the area of Monument and its suburbs.

"It's begun, hasn't it?"

"Yes. Heaven help all of humanity, both sides included."

Suddenly, a shadow drew over them. They looked up, to find a Tyrolean assault shuttle hovering over them. Zor yelled his ultimatum up to the vessel.

"If you attack, you will destroy all that is here - Flowers, Protoculture, and the Muse. Go tell your Masters! Tell them this war must end!"

"We will return," a booming voice replied.

"Zor, how much can you remember now? Can we stop the Masters?"

"It's starting to all come together in my mind, now. Whatever happens, Musica will be the key that will open the barriers in our way. Noel, take Angie, Louie and Sean back to get our tanks and gear. Nova, Jennifer; you need to make it possible for the others to bring the tanks here, through security."

Zor's half-formed plan was better than none at all, so they acted on it. Nova gave Noel a passcode that would get them out of the base, and then Noel teleported out with the three other tankers. Jen called over one of the other GMP, who was using a jet pack, and had the trooper fly down, and bring up the duffle bag in Nova's jeep.

"Here's your armor, Nova. I have a feeling you'll be needing it. I wish I could make this stand with you, but I've got to go and cover for you, should the fight turn to where command has the free time to come looking for us. As it is, we're feeding them a line about unconfirmed activity up here, so they don't pull us back down into the meat grinder - like we could even get there in time. The reports say that the Masters are using civilian clones pumped full of pain deadeners and stims in human wave attacks, and -" Jen was interrupted by a priority flash over the radio. "Oh God, no..."

"What is it?"

"General Emerson's fleet has been destroyed!"

**Chapter Four:**

"There's something in the air,

Maybe for the only time in my life;

Something in the air,

Turning me around and guiding me right..."

- The Alan Parsons Project, "Prime Time"

**15 June 2030, 16:19**

The 15th ATAC stood on the summit of the SDF-1 mound, watching the Masters' landing ships swarm on Monument City. They had their tanks, now that Noel's group had returned, but no one knew what would happen when the Maters turned their attention back to the mounds.

"Bowie, I'm so ashamed," Musica said, crying on Bowie's shoulder from the carnage.

"It's not your fault," Bowie replied, trying to comfort her.

"Look at them, Alex;" Noel said to her own lover. "We're together; those two are together, if worried about their families. Why can't Dana have a chance for happiness?"

"What do you mean?"

"Something's going to happen today. Why is Zor so bent on revenge?"

"He's been violated, like no other person in history. He's almost insane with thoughts of revenge; but those thoughts appear to be the only thing keeping him going right now, from lapsing into despair over what he was forced to do while being manipulated by the Masters."

"...He doesn't want to help Musica. He wants revenge, and he wants to die more than he wants to live, I think," Dana said to Nova, loud enough for Alex and Noel to overhear, but not part of their conversation.

"Can you really blame him?" Nova responded.

"No, I can't; but why can't he see that he has other options. He can have a whole new life ahead of him; a life with... with me."

"ZOR! TRAITOR! ARE YOU THERE?" A voice boomed from the hovertanks' speakers, causing Sean, who was the only one sitting in a tank, to about have a coronary. Zor immediately jumped into his tank, and replied.

"I hear you."

"You are aware that the Protoculture Matrix is undergoing degradation, as the flowers bloom. And by now, the Sensor Nebula surely has alerted the Invid."

"Yes. But, I also know that I control the key to this planet's survival, and yours. I dictate the terms."

"We are of the opinion you are mistaken. Watch closely and see." And image of Rolf, Marie and Dennis appeared on their screens. "These three men will be released when you return Musica, and remove your troops from this area."

"Hey Sean!" Alex called out. "At least we know they haven't done anything to Marie, yet," referring to the obvious differences in gender that would have been discovered if they had removed her armor.

"Fun-ny, Alex; why am I not laughing?"

"Do you find this acceptable?" the Masters continued. "We trust that we need not mention the alternative."

"What are your conditions?"

"You will be picked up, and we will exchange prisoners on board our ship." With that, the screen went blank.

"I do not wish for the rest of you to be involved," Zor said to the others. "Musica and I must finish what our originals started."

"NO! They're not getting Musica! I'll kill you!" Bowie leapt at Zor, pinning him against the side of Zor's hovertank.

"Then stay here and do nothing, and watch Emerson and the others die. And, they will show you their deaths. The Masters have brought pain and suffering to an art form; their techniques are crueler than anything you can imagine."

"Please, stop it, Bowie!" Musica pleaded, interposing herself between them, as Zor was not fighting back. "I will not permit you all to suffer because of me. I will go back - but not alone. Your desire for revenge is blinding you, Zor. We can't stop them alone."

"She's right. Everyone, saddle up!" Dana called out, but everyone was slow to respond. "What, are you all deaf?"

"We could be waking into a trap," Angie pointed out.

"There's no telling what will happen," Zor replied. But nothing else matters, now. This thing is between us and the Masters." Zor's voice fell to a whisper. "Maybe this is how it was meant to be, from the start."

Understanding more than the others what the last line meant, Alex turned to Noel.

"Lover, watch over those two when we get up there. The first trouble you sense, act on it."

"I will. I promised Karen, back at the SDF-3 launch, hat I would protect Dana and Bowie. Had she known about Zor and Musica then, she probably would have included them as well, even without their relationships with Dana and Bowie." Noel looked over at Nova, then at Musica. "I've got an idea. Nova!"

"What?"

"Do you think you can handle a hovertank?"

"Not too well. I can drive it at low speeds, and fire the gun, but I won't be able to switch modes."

"Well, all you need is the ability to drive, for what I want you to do. Come over here, and drive my tank. Musica, you come over here too."

"Noel, I recognize that look in your eyes," Bowie noted. "What have you got going on in that devious mind of yours?"

"Remember how I got into Zor's hospital room? I'll do it again, only imitating Musica instead of Nova. It'll fool any guards, but it won't fool the Masters themselves for long. I'll put on that armor you found, to disguise me better, and Musica will wear my armor again until we're clear."

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Bowie, she may be your girlfriend, but she's MY grandmother. I'd do anything that would keep you two together."

"All right, but be careful."

"Why are you worried about me being careful? You're going to have to stay be my side, if I'm to pretend to be her. You'll be the one watching out for me, while I'm distracted by the mental illusion."

"I guess you're right."

Noel and Musica went back into the mound, out of the potential prying eyes of the Masters' surveillance. Ten minutes later, they emerged, helmets on, as a troop carrier landed. They boarded it with their mecha, and all Jen could do is watch as the 15th flew toward space. Jen then led her troops back toward Monument, hoping to reach it by dark, considering the much slower speeds of the Battloids as compared to the hovertanks.

"Musica, calm your mind, We must let them think that I am you. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I do."

The 15th ATAC (+2) was now moving down a corridor lined with clone guards and Terminator androids. Nova was at the controls of Noel's hovertank, Noel coaching her from behind, with Musica sitting behind Noel. All was quiet as they were called to a halt.

"First of all, we want to see General Emerson," Dana called out.

The reply came back. "That is acceptable, but only Musica and two others may continue to the exchange point."

"That's my cue, girls," Noel whispered. "Hold down the fort for me." Noel climbed out of the tank clumsily, to simulate Musica's not being used to the procedure. Once on the ground, she pulled off the ride armor's helmet, and heard several of her friends gasp. She now looked exactly like Musica to them, and to their escort. She threw a wink back to Alex, who flashed an "okay" hand gesture back.

"Are you ready, 'Musica'?" Dana said, as she and Bowie walked over and stood to either side.

"As ready as I'll ever be, Dana." Noel thought to the two. "Okay, Bowie, let's make this look good." She hooked her arm around Bowie's, and he walked her over to their escort. They were then led down the hall, Noel transmitting every move back to Alex via telepathy. While Dana and Bowie had their rifles, "Musica" appeared totally unarmed, but was far from it, thanks to the Cyclone's survival pack. A triskelion doorway opened in front of them, and Emerson, Crystal and Brown were led out.

"General Emerson!" Bowie yelled, as he and Dana ran to their guardian. "You're wounded."

"It's nothing serious," he lied. "I'm glad to see you, Bowie."

"Dana, trap!" Noel yelped, as the clone guards tried to grab her from behind, thinking she was Musica. She did a short-range teleport forward, dropping the illusion, and unslinging the rifle mode Gallant H90 she had hidden under the illusion. She dove for cover, and pulled her helmet over her head from its hip carry strap, using her telekinesis. "Alex! Angie! Code Red! Code Red!"

"We're on our way!" Alex called back, before the guards could clamp down the radio scramblers again. The XO of the 15th, flanked by his head NCO and his former commander, led the charge down the corridors he had seen via Noel's telepathy.

Meanwhile, the six in the hot seat took cover, but could not move from their positions without getting shot. However, they'd increased their firepower by having Noel use her telekinesis to grab guns from unwary or downed guards. Eventually, even this proved only a temporary help, as the clones were slowly blasting away the cover. All the while, they were considering themselves lucky that the Masters never invented grenades. Finally, as the situation was getting desperate, the door they'd entered smashed like so much aluminum siding, and the three lead tanks, now in Battloid mode, burst through. A few of the clones made futile attempts to shoot them, and were shot for their trouble, while the rest ran for reinforcements.

"You took your time getting here!" Marie and Noel called out.

"We can't teleport, remember?" Alex shot back in jest, turning his gun pod on a triad that had been firing on the pedestrians' position, and shot with intent at them.

The firing had lessened, but not stopped, when Nova drove in. Before Nova could stop her, Musica jumped from the tank and ran to Bowie, dropping her helmet along the way.

"Musica, go back!" Bowie yelled, running up to cover her.

Emerson saw a guard getting up off the ground, where he had been knocked by a near-miss from a gun pod. The guard pulled his rifle up, to blast the two lovers. Rolf jumped, trying to interpose himself between his godson and the gunman. Time seemed to crawl for Noel, as one of her earlier visions passed before her eyes. "No!" She tried something new, kicking her telekinesis into boosting her leg strength, diving into Emerson from five meters away as he dove into the line of fire. The shot creased Noel's armor, which absorbed most of the shot, with the remainder hitting Emerson as her time sense returned to normal. Had he been healthy, it would have been a flesh wound, but in his condition, the shock could be lethal. "Alex, hurry! Rolf's down!"

Alex ran over to them, as Dana and Sean took out the last resistance in the room. Bowie and Musica came to Rolf's side as well.

"Rolf... Father..." Bowie said, holding his godfather in his arms.

"I heard your music. The night before they sent me to take over ALUCE, I stood under the barracks window, and listened to you play. It was beautiful, Bowie; you have a gift."

"I wasn't - I haven't -" Bowie wanted to say how much he loved his godfather, and how sorry he was for the embarrassment of his apparent desertion, but couldn't find the words.

"You and Musica... It's a good thing, Bowie. I saw the effect her defection has had on their society. You two need to teach both races to give up their hate, son."

"Alex, we're losing him!" Marie said, trying her best to help with her basic medic training.

"Not yet! C'mon General, don't die on us! If the Freemans don't come back soon, I'll need you to give Noel away!" Alex injected Rolf with a stimulant, and stuck him with an IV bag of blood substitute. Rolf remained unconscious, but his pulse stabilized.

"Alex?" Bowie asked, his silence speaking volumes.

"I don't know. I think I've got him stable enough to move, but we need to get him to a med center, soon. I don't think the Masters are in a mood to let us use theirs."

Noel bent over Emerson, kissing him on the forehead. She concentrated on Rolf's wounds, sparing only enough of her own energy to stop his internal bleeding. She also put him into a regenerative sleep, almost as deep as a coma. In that state, they would be back to Earth before he awoke. With a little help from her other powers, he would also appear to be dead, to Zand's sensitives. "Okay, Zand," she whispered. "The way is open for you to show yourself, or so you think."

"Everyone, heads up!" They're coming back for more!" Dana shouted, as the sound of Bioroid hovercraft drew closer.

"Sean, Nova!" Noel called out. "Put Emerson in my tank, and you take it, Nova. Alex, get me the Cyclone."

"What good is a collapsible motorcycle?" he asked, pulling it out.

"It's not just a motorcycle!" she replied, using TK to lower it to the ground. She then opened it back up from storage mode, and climbed on it. She started the engine, then kicked it off the deck with the boosters, and it came apart, and formed itself around her in a series of complex transformations. It was now a suit of powered armor, complete with a nasty-looking multiple shot rocket launcher. "Get the others out of here! I'm going back for the tanks we left outside."

"Are you sure?"

"I'll rejoin you soon. Get moving!"

The others retreated, save Dana, who was already on the way back to her tank when she heard the Bioroids approaching. Noel caught up with her, and they retrieved the two tanks just in time to keep the others from walking into an ambush. It was at this time that they noticed that Zor had dropped out on them again, with revenge on his mind. They escaped pursuit, and found themselves in an assault ship hangar, seemingly abandoned. A debate arose on using the ships to escape, but Dana had other ideas.

"I'm going after him."

"Aw, for crying out loud!" Angie moaned, as Dana took off before anyone could stop her.

"I'm going back, too," Bowie said. "Musica says her people are in terrible danger."

"And how does she know that?"

"I can sense it; my sisters and I are linked. When close, we can even share memories."

"I'll go with you," Nova said. "If they're in danger, it has to be from their own forces."

"And I'll go too," Dennis added. Everyone else started volunteering, overwhelming Angie.

"Hold it! Alex, help me!"

"What's the problem?"

"Musica says that her sisters are in danger, and everyone wants to go with her to rescue them. We can't all go, especially with the general in the condition he's in."

"Angie, we'll all go, except Sean, Marie and Noel. They have the field skills to watch Emerson, and if he deteriorates, Noel can always teleport to us and retrieve me. If we're going to be going on a rescue, I'll be needed for medical problems, and you're the kind of NCO that could command the walking dead. We may need you to help with the evacuation."

"Evacuation?"

"We just can't leave the civilians here, especially if the Masters are putting them in danger. One of the reports before we left said that the Masters were using human wave attacks of clones drugged to the point of feeling no pain. Then, while the defenses were occupied, the areas under attack were hit by fission beams, like the SDF-1 gun, killing both the cities and the clones."

"Oh, God. I'm with you, Alex."

"Are you sure you want me to stay here?" Noel asked.

"Positive. I'll know Emerson is in good hands with you there."

"I understand," Noel replied weakly, knowing in her heart that the real reason was that Alex thought that she'd risked her life too many times already today. Unfortunately for him, she knew that she still had many things to do before the day was done.

Alex collected all the medical gear from their tanks, and the rescue team headed out. Once they were out of radio range from the jamming, Noel snuck out of the assault ship they'd moved Emerson to, and wheeled away the Cyclone. Out of earshot of Sean and Marie, she climbed on it, and took off - not after the others, but chasing Dana and Zor.

**Chapter Five:**

"And it's a Prime Time,

Maybe the stars are right;

I had a premonition,

It's gonna be my turn tonight..."

- The Alan Parsons Project, "Prime Time"

**15 June 2030, 18:39**

"There are my people - the ARE outside the ship! We are too late! They have been abandoned by the Masters and set adrift." The bay window was filled with the sight of dozens of clones, drifting in space with space suits or in small craft, but nothing more.

"Are they still alive?"

"Yes, but doomed."

"Maybe we can still save them."

"A rescue mission would be just about impossible."

"I wouldn't bet on it, Louie. The Masters have tractor beams. If we can get through to the hangar, maybe they can find the controls, and bring the people aboard. Sean, can you hear me?"

"Alex! Yes, but you're not too clear. You must have doubled back near the hangar. What's up?"

"I'll make this quick. Look for tractor beam controls, and use their sensors to look for space suits and small vessels with low life signs. The Masters have set part of the population adrift, and I want you to reel them in, and stick them into the assault craft for our return to Earth."

"Marie and I will get right on it."

"Ask Noel if she can find them; she knows fluent Tiresian."

"Uh, Alex... she left right after you did."

"What?"

"She snuck off with the Cyclone. We think she went after Dana and Zor, if she's not with you."

Suddenly, the signal failed. "Damn! They boosted the jamming again!"

"Allegra! Octavia! My sisters are nearby!" Musica cried.

"Can you take us to them?"

"I think so."

"Then, let's go. If we can get some of the clones who can fly the assault ships, we won't have to worry about reviving some of the ones from outside until we can get back to Earth."

Noel came upon Dana and Zor fighting wave after wave of Bioroids. At first, she thought to join them, but then she realized that they were much better armored than she was, and her rocket launcher had only two rounds left. So, she stayed behind them, watching in case they needed her help.

"Our victory is within reach," Shaizan said to his fellow Robotech Masters, almost gloating over the fact that the Matrix was minutes from their possession for the first time in centuries.

"I shall NEVER allow such a victory!" a voice cried from behind them. They turned, and saw Zor and Dana, a determined look on their faces.

"So, you have finally come. We have been expecting you, Zor, and you have not disappointed us."

"Then, I assume you know my purpose for being here."

"Yes, of course. Your purpose has always remained the same-"

"You are the embodiment of Zor, creator of the first Protoculture, and the Master responsible for our development," Shaizan and Bowkaz said, almost as one, with the latter completing the former's reply.

"You mean, it was Zor who also developed the Zentraedi people?"

Dag, the third Master replied.

"Zor was the prime force behind all the advancements of our society."

"But his most important achievement was the Protoculture, which brings with it the promise of eternal life," Shaizan said, completing the round-robin.

"No! NO! The Protoculture has brought only death! I will end this evil here and now." Zor shot into the floating containers of seeds that had already flowered.

Shaizan walked over to the last unblossomed matrix. "Surely, you are not prepared to destroy your most precious possession, the embodiment of all your hopes and dreams. Without it, your native civilization will wither and die."

"MY CIVILIZATION IS ALREADY DEAD!" Zor shouted, firing at the matrix and Shaizan. Shaizan dove away without being hit, but the matrix's shield was shattered, and it was sent flying. Bowkaz dove for it, only to be shot by Zor. Dana made a running jump to catch it.

"Do not touch the terminals!" Dag cried, but it was the only way Dana could catch it. As her hands clasped the terminals, time seemed to stop, as the Flowers blossomed.

Dana woke up in a field covered with Flowers of Life, still clad in her armor. The landscape seemed familiar, yet unearthly. She noticed figures around her, each holding Flowers of Life. She then noticed that she was holding them too, and that the three nearest figures, inside the larger circle, were identical to herself, but wearing the uniform of the office of the Muse. She first felt as if she should join them, then she remembered what the triumvirates, even privileged ones like the Muses, went through. The other figures, only shadows, seemed to be waiting for her decision.

She threw her Flowers to the ground, and they shattered as if dipped in liquid nitrogen. "I am NOT a part of your people! I am an individual human being!"

The figures wavered and faded as if dispersing smoke, screaming as they went. Dana had closed her eyes, and not notice the change in environment as it occurred.

"I reject the structure of your civilization! I reject your values and beliefs! I'm an individual human being from the planet Earth!"

She opened her eyes, and stared in horror at the new surroundings; the ashes, the bones, the utter lifelessness of it all. Worse, she now realized the terrain, both before and now, was that surrounding Monument City. "Is this how Humanity will end, both races dead? Is anybody here?" she called out into the desolation, wandering, and fell as a femur rolled out from under her feet. As she fell, she heard someone call out her name.

When she looked up, she was in a beautiful, green place. Strange trees grew around her, with cylindrical purple fruit hanging from the branches, and Flowers of Life growing underneath domes.

"Dana, wait for me! I'm coming!" A little girl with blue-black hair was running toward her.

"Who are you?"

"Your sister, Dana! The youngest daughter of Max and Miriya! I was born a long, long way from Earth, and I've come to warn you. Oh, Mother and Father will be so glad to know I've finally made contact with you."

"I'm glad, too. But, what are you supposed to warn me about?"

"The spores, Dana," her sister said, pressing a handful of Flowers into Dana's hand. "I've come to bring you these Flowers, and warn you about the spores."

"Please - let's not talk about that. Tell me about you! What's your name?" But, she ran away, before Dana could finish. "Please, come back! I want to know more!" Three figures appeared before them, and the little girl ran to the couple, who were obviously male and female.

"Mommy? Daddy?" Dana cried out.

"Dana, we need to talk," the third figure said, approaching from out of the mists. She looked like an older version of Dana, wearing the CVR ride armor of a Cyclone.

"Who?"

"It's me; your 'Aunt Marie', though I'm sure you know better by now. Long ago, Karen created me, by cloning you. Time grows short. Many things have happened since the REF left Earth, good and bad. Your powers are awake now, and they are growing! Use them cautiously; we of the Sentinels have seen Karen use hers for both good and ill. Aurora, Mom and Dad are still on a planet called Haydon IV; but I'm on my way back to Earth with Scott and our children. We'll see you soon."

"We love you, Dana! We love you very much!" Aurora called out, and their parents echoed the statement, as they, Aurora, and lastly Marie, began to fade back into the mists.

"Oh, I-I love you too! And I miss you so!" The images swiftly faded completely away, then the vision went black.

**Chapter Six:**

"Originality exists in every individual because each of us differs from the others. We are all primary numbers divisible only by ourselves."

- Jean Guitton

**15 June 2030, 19:28**

"All those who stand against us shall perish! Soon we will recover the Flowers of Life from the surface of the planet, and be all-powerful once more. Surrender to us and be spared, Zor."

"Your misuse of the Protoculture shall not go unpunished. Till you are gone, I will not give up!"

Dana had come to during the debate, and pulled herself to her feet. She was still disoriented from the vision she'd experienced, and it threw her further that the Masters had escaped during her incoherent period, and were now communicating with Zor via hologram.

"I'll be right beside you, Zor" she said, as the hologram faded.

"Thank you, Dana. Thank you for showing me kindness, and... and for caring for me. I only wish I wasn't endangering you, by you being here with me. This is my fight, not yours."

Noel, listening from the corridor, recognized what Dana did not. Zor did not intend to live through the day. That must not happen.

Zor went to the door, through which the Masters had fled. He tried, without luck, to open it.

"The door's too strong for hand weapons," he said to Dana. "And they have removed my access codes at last. We're trapped."

"Are you sure? Maybe we can hot-wire it or something."

"The door doesn't work that way; it doesn't have any manual controls," Zor began to explain, only to be surprised when the door opened to Dana's touch. "BY HAYDON! How did you do that?"

"I'm only beginning to find out just what I can do. Now, how do we find them, and stop them?"

"The next best place to do their work is the triumvirate conference chamber. Rest assured, we will find them there, with their minions."

The two took off down the hall, Noel following as discretely as possible.

"My sisters! I am so happy to see you. Many of our people have been set adrift in space," Musica exclaimed, embracing her sisters. However, the reunion were cut short by Bowie's warning.

"We've got to move out. Troops are heading this way."

"We've got to get out of here," Octavia said to the others in the room. "There is great danger."

The clones immediately rose on her order; singles, couples, even the nurses from the eugenics program, holding the babies from the creche. In an ironic note, Musica and her sisters were the only triumvirate present, as the room was reserved for the survivors of sundered triads.

Angelo and Nova immediately joined in helping the move, Nova even taking one of the children into her arms. The train of would-be refugees snaked through the back tunnels of the ship, until they came to a trap door. As the clone who gave them the directions promised, the hatch led to a cargo handling area off of a set of loading docks. Dante went through first, then helped the lethargic clones through the hatch. Distracted by this work, he didn't hear the far doors open, and it was only the firing of the clone guards' weapons into the refugees that got his and the others' attention.

Karno, the clone the Masters had intended for Musica's mate, was in charge of the guard forces. "Stay where you are; make no move, or you will be shot. Everybody, go back at once, or be eliminated."

Musica took the floor on the refugees' behalf. "Karno, how can you do this? Everyone here has the right to their own life."

One of Karno's clone-brothers replied. "How dare you speak of rights for those who have betrayed the triumvirate, and rejected our society and its way of life? All of you return immediately, or you will be shot down where you stand."

"No one will be leaving here," Nova answered back. "These are not your slaves; these are individuals who have chosen freedom over the restraints of your society."

"Then you will perish, you who disrupt our lives."

Karno and his men opened fire into the crowd. In response, their guide leapt into the path of the fire, sacrificing himself to protect Musica, the way her original had once protected Zor. The remaining clones dove for cover, as Louie threw a grenade into the crowd of guards, who were unfamiliar with the concept of a thrown explosive weapon, and did not try to evade. The explosion's aftermath allowed the armored humans to take the front, with their weapons.

To the side, Musica held the dying clone that sacrificed himself for her. "Why did you...?"

"You have always been the ideal for all of us. Nothing must be allowed to happen to you." As he died, she was touched by a memory from him, through their racial telepathy. Two children, playing on the streets of Tiresia, laughing and crying together. She was one of the children; his original, the other. Only as his life faded away, did she recognize him, as he had evidently recognized her, against the odds, long before. Memories long suppressed by the Masters came back, bringing with them tears of grief, and anger at the Masters.

"Be at peace, little brother." Musica laid his body down, dried her eyes, and stormed back around the corner, with new determination. "Karno! Stop this immediately!"

"Musica, get back!" Bowie shouted, but she would not be deterred, this time.

"Musica, the Micronians have cast a spell over you!"

"That's not true, Karno. I have freely chosen a new way of life-" Musica paused, as a near miss from a weapon singed her arm. "The truth is, we are all individual beings with free will - and you know it!"

"I don't believe that. You speak lies; you're bewitched!"

"Any ideas for getting out?" Louie asked Angie and Alex.

"We could try apologizing," Alex replied, his voice oozing sarcasm.

"Or, we could pray for a miracle," Angie added.

Just then, the door behind the guards started caving in, as a Battloid kicked and punched its way through the metal.

"So, this is the reason you guys stood me up for our date at the rendezvous," Sean joked from the Battloid, kicking the guards nearest him with the mecha.

"Yeah, I meant to drop you a note, but I got real involved," Angie snapped back.

"Oh, yeah? No excuses!" Sean slapped the last survivor of a guard triad with his Battloid's hand, knocking the clone senseless.

Angie, Louie and Musica led the rush toward the door, followed by the clones. As Allegra and Octavia ran by, the clone knocked down by Sean pulled himself up, and fired at them. He missed Allegra with his second shot, but his first shot went through Octavia, entering below her sternum, and exiting out her left shoulder. Bowie dragged her to safety, as Sean covered them and the guard, the latter with the foot of the Battloid.

"Octavia! No!" Musica ran to her sister's side, followed by Bowie and Alex. "Alex, save her! I don't want to lose another sibling."

Alex didn't understand the reference, but began to treat the wounded Muse. Luckily, the wound was mostly self-cauterizing, and missed her heart, though one lung was holed. He quickly stripped her blouse off, opened her abdomen, and found a nicked artery. He used the portable sealer to cauterize the wound, and topped that seal with a patch that would hold the seal, and encourage better regeneration of the tissue. If he had taken even a minute longer to operate, she would have probably been beyond help. As it was, she went into cardiac arrest once, and he made only rudimentary repairs to the lung, to close the leakage points. If ever there was a time for meatball surgery, this was it. After closing, he injected her with several drugs to aid in combating the shock to the body, and used the last two bags of the blood substitute he kept in his triage bag. He felt in bad need of a shower, being covered with the blood of his sort-of future grandmother-in-law.

"Alex, will she make it?"

"I can't promise anything. Both she and Rolf need better care than I can give them here. Their only hope is that I can get them to a hospital ground-side."

So, we can move her?"

"Pick her up, but carefully. Musica needs to keep the IV higher than her sister's body, to keep it flowing, and the arm with the needle needs to be immobilized to prevent needle slippage - Angie, can you bring some sort of stretcher over here?"

"Not a real one, but close enough." He shot the door off of a walk-in crate, and carried it over.

"It'll do. Nice thinking." Bowie lifted Octavia onto the door, while Alex and Angie carried it through, Bowie and the other two Muses flanking it. Two doors down, across the hall, was the hangar where Marie was waiting with Rolf.

Alex had her placed next to Rolf, then found a shower and used it, still clothed. Finally, the time came that they had to launch. He set down next to them, to monitor them during the journey. But, there was only one real thought on his mind.

"Dammit, Noel; where are you?"

**Chapter Seven:**

"Carry on my wayward son;

There'll be peace when you are done.

Lay your weary head to rest;

Don't you cry no more."

- Kansas, "Carry On Wayward Son"

**15 June 2030, 20:06**

"Masters, hear me; the moment of retribution is at hand! It is time for your reign of evil to end!"

"Do you not understand, Zor? All opposition on the planet's surface has been destroyed. Nothing can stop us from recovering the Matrix."

"No one but us, you mean," Dana yelled back. "You've abused that power once; we won't let you do it again." She pointed her rifle at the scientist triumvirate. "Stop the machines!"

"Impossible! The process cannot be stopped, once started."

Dana raised her rifle to fire a warning shot, but was knocked off her feet by Zor, who had seen the weapon on the bottom of the Masters' platform turn on her. They scrambled for cover, evading the Masters' shots. Zor tackled a guard, rolled over, and fired a shot that sent Dag falling backward over the platform's rail, dead before he hit the ground. Dana then got in a lucky shot that brought the platform down. It crashed into the scientists, killing them, but Shaizan leapt to safety before the impact. He hit the ground running, in the direction of the nearest hatch.

"You cannot escape me!" Zor shouted, but Shaizan did manage to at least postpone the inevitable, by sealing the hatch behind him.

"Warning!" a computerized voice called out. "Automatic guidance systems damaged. Ship out of control and descending."

Dana looked at the console. Unless manual controls were found, the ship was going to crash into Monument City. While the city had been hit by the Masters' most powerful weapon, there were likely still survivors in the shelters, and those shelters would not survive the crash of the ship on top of them.

"Zor, there must be a manual control system, somewhere. We need to capture him alive, to keep the ship from crashing!"

Zor made no response, so she stepped through the hatch Zor had finally coaxed into opening, which turned out to be an elevator. Based on their knowledge of the ship, there was only one place Shaizan could be heading, and they found him there, almost out of breath. It was an escape pod launch facility, though only one pod could be launched at a time, and Shaizan was staggering toward it.

"Stop! I command you!" Zor shouted, raising his rifle. Shaizan ignored him, knowing his only real chance was to beat the incoming fire to the escape pod.

"Zor, don't!" Dana pleaded, but Zor fired anyway, his shot passing cleanly through the aged Master's heart from behind, killing him instantly.

"It's all over now," Zor said, more for his own benefit than Dana's.

"What do you mean, 'all over'?" Dana cried. "This ship's gonna demolish the city!"

"The Masters had to be punished, for their misuse of the Protoculture," Zor countered.

"Well, what about my people? Why punish them for something beyond their power?"

Zor cut Dana off from continuing her argument by kissing her. It was their first kiss, one between people who loved each other, and knew it to be true. But, Dana felt there was something wrong about it.

"Do not worry about your people, Dana. I will allow no harm to come to them," he said, sweeping her off her feet, and depositing her in the escape pod. But, instead of getting in with her, he closed the hatch. "Goodbye, Dana."

"Zor, you can't do this to me! ZOR!" Dana cried out, in vain, as Zor went to the controls and launched the pod, overriding the pod's internal controls to keep her from aborting the launch. As the pod streaked out the launch tunnel, Dana heard a familiar voice in her head.

"Dana, I saw the whole thing. I'm going to try to save him, but I'm not sure I can pull it off. If I don't make it out, tell Alex... that I love him."

"Noel..." Dana whispered to herself, scared by the implications of the message. She held her head in her hands, wondering if the two people most dear to her in the world would live to see tomorrow.

The assault ships they had commandeered had not been used in the space battle for one very good reason - they were all operating on reserve power, their Protoculture mains depleted. They could only hope the reserves would be enough for the short flight to the ground. After the death of Bowkaz was reported, and Zor's pursuit of the other two became known, much of the remaining populace, even some of the Masters' own clone guards, converged on the hangar to escape. Despite the Masters' best efforts, the cult of the Disciples of Zor had never been stamped out completely, and the clones saw Zor's rampage as the fulfilling of prophecy.

The late arrivals to the evacuation point assured them that the Masters' loyal forces were so depleted and in disarray, that their departure would be unopposed. Now, they also had to hope that any surviving ASC troops would believe their ID hails, broadcast continuously during the descent, and not shoot them down.

Alex was too distracted to notice, or even care. He was doing his best to keep Octavia and Emerson alive, which in turn got his mind off Noel. At least, it did until shortly after their landing, when he discovered a note from Noel tucked into Emerson's bandages.

"Alex, my love;

I've gone after Dana and Zor. I'm sorry it had to be this way; Karen's gift included more than the awakening of my powers. Important things are happening, and since Karen's stuck on the opposite side of the galaxy, it's up to me to try and right a wrong. As much as I love you, Dana is important to me as well, and I swore an oath to protect her and her interests. This is the only way I have left to uphold that vow, to try and save Dana's happiness. I only wish there could be some other way.

Forever your girl - Noel"

"Oh, God; Noel, what are you up to?"

"Alex, what is it?"

"Read it for yourself, Sean;" Alex replied, throwing the note at Phillips. "Louie, have you picked up any more rats leaving the sinking ship?"

"Just one, Alex. An escape pod, with only one aboard, landed north of our position."

"Dana. Take us over to her, to pick her up."

"How do you know?"

"Read the note that Noel left me; Sean's got it. What's the ship's current position?"

"It's stopped. It's been hovering over the ruins of Macross for the last five minutes."

Alex suddenly realized what Zor had in mind.

"Oh, please; no!"

Almost as if to spurn his plea, the ship exploded, with the force of a small nuclear device.

"NOEL!" Alex screamed, tapering to a whimper as he collapsed onto the deck, sobbing.

**Chapter Eight:**

"Is it written in stone

That we wind up alone?"

- Survivor, "Broken Promises" (1984)

"Life is only what we choose to make it;

Let's just take it;

Let us be free..."

- Minmei, "We Will Win" (2011)

**15 June 2030, 21:26**

Dana felt the worst that she had ever felt in her eighteen years of life. She had survived her confrontation with Zand, but had lost much in the moments leading up to it. Now that sensation was returning to her extremities, she picked up Polly, and walked back to the escape pod. All the while, the same thought kept repeating in her head; why did Zor and Noel have to die?

Her survivor guilt trip was disturbed by the sound of a slow aircraft approaching. It cleared the trees, and she saw it was a Tyrolean assault ship, using its auxiliary thrusters. She attempted to hide, but abandoned her cover when she saw that the ship held her friends, as opposed to Bioroids looking for Shaizan.

"Dana, you made it!" Sean called out. "Have you seen Noel? Alex kinda freaked when the ship exploded."

"Sean, she didn't make it."

"Where's Zor?" Musica asked.

"With Noel. He was trying to save Earth, by destroying the Flowers, but failed. Noel was trying to save him."

"Now the Invid will come, even more quickly," Musica cried. "Why did it have to come to this? Why?" Musica buried her face in Bowie's shoulder, weeping, as Alex staggered out of the ship, bleary-eyed, toward Dana.

"I... I guess we both got the raw end of this mess, didn't we?" He put his arm around Dana, along with a blanket. He hugged her, tears in his eyes to match her own.

"We're still alive, though. It's coming clear to me, now. We cannot change our fates; the 'Shapings', as Zand referred to it, before he died."

Alex wondered where or how Dana had ran into Zand, in the short time between her landing and her rescue. Then, he noticed the large alien flower nearby, with faintly human features, and decided not to ask. He continued on with his own view.

"Are you sure, Dana? Zand's own notes that I stole said that Noel was an anomaly; that she had no place in the Shapings. By their very existence, Noel and her sister have changed the Shapings."

"I don't think so -" Dana cut herself short, as she heard the sounds of an approaching mecha, as did everyone else. They all turned, to see a GMP Battloid. The hatch popped open, and Jenny stuck her head out, in response to the amazed looks she was getting.

"Hi guys; you really know how to bring the house down, don't you? Uh, what's with the stares?"

"Jen, how is that thing running? All the Protoculture's gone kaput."

"You don't know? Only the air Veritechs and the front-line Hovertanks use Protoculture power plants. The Battloids and the reserve ATAC units all use fusion, to keep them from being targets for theft in remote areas. In fact, we just took a bunch of Bioroid pilots prisoner on our way back toward town, because they were helpless when their mecha stopped working."

"So, that's where the rest of your team is?" Nova asked.

"Mostly. A jeep with a couple medics in it has an ETA here in the next minute or so. When I saw the condition of the clones coming out of those transports using the telescopic optics, I figured they would be needed. Besides, your calls said something about wounded?"

"Yes; we rescued the General, but we need a way to get him to someplace where we can treat his wounds better. Can you scrounge us some transport?"

"Will do. I've been trying to set up a chain of command for our surviving forces."

"Which are?" Marie asked.

"Back in town, we have ten assorted Battloids, three of the fusion-powered reservist tanks, and a ad hoc company of troops; mostly GMP and Civil Defense. The clones stopped attacking about ten minutes before the ship blew, and surrendered. They said something about their controllers being killed."

"That would fit," Dana stated. "Zor and I took out nearly all of their command structure, before... before..." Dana couldn't continue.

"Well, between them, and civilians who were either in the suburbs or outside town, we've got about a thousand refugees, with the able-bodied helping us search. Downtown is gone - even the shelters were slagged. They probably weren't even sealed when the blast hit, because the weapon was in a modified troop carrier like these. We made sure it would never shoot anyone again."

"What about the command staff?"

Both Monument Sector and Denver Sector headquarters were hit, along with all the military bases. Major Crystal, from what little we've picked up, you're probably the highest ranking officer healthy enough to function between the Rio Grande and the Mississippi."

"That bad?"

"Worse. The Quebecois Army went on alert when the Masters began converging on the Western Command, and were reportedly taking advantage of the chaos to expand their borders. Neither Detroit or Manhattan sector commands will send us any aid, while that threat exists, and they refuse to let Tyrolean refugees or prisoners to be brought in for the duration as well."

"So, we're stuck here in the middle of all this desolation, with three thousand civilians to care for; that's just great-"

Suddenly, a bright flash came from overhead, followed by a thunderclap three seconds later. They looked up, and saw a large object falling toward them.

"What the hell?" Jen ducked back into her Battloid, and engaged its optics.

"What is it?" Nova yelled up.

"It's not an it, it's a they! Two mecha, it looks like. I'm going to fire up the jet pack and try to slow them down! Everyone, clear out!"

"No!" John interjected. "Jen, you could be killed!"

"It's a chance I'm willing to take. Besides, I can't let Sean outdo me." Both Sean and Marie blushed slightly at that comment, as Jenny did an emergency turbine power-up, and took off into the air.

She managed to match their speed while they were still a half-kilometer up, and got under them, using her jet pack to slow their descent. However, neither the Battloid or its jet pack were designed for such stress, and their systems started failing. At a height of about thirty meters, the descent had been slowed to a crawl; but that was when the jet pack blew out a turbine, sending all three mecha crashing to the ground, thankfully missing those on the ground with their mass and with the thrown turbine blades. The two mecha were now recognizable; the blasted remains of Dana's Hovertank and a Red Bioroid.

"It can't be-" Nova said to herself, before breaking into a run toward the heaped mecha.

"Louie, see if you can find rescue equipment on the assault ship!" Angie yelled into his armor's collar mike. "Especially cutting tools!"

"Right away, Sergeant."

By some miracle, the Battloid had landed on top, being the lightest of the three mecha. However, most of the answers they got from Jenny when they tried contacting her were screams of pain and frustration. Finally, they got her calmed down enough to where the voiceprint system accepted her command to open the access hatch. Alex climbed in, and helped her out of the Battloid; her reasons for screaming had been a broken left arm, a badly dislocated right shoulder, and several broken ribs. As soon as he got her clear, he and the medics she had mentioned only two minutes earlier began resetting her arms, and bandaging her ribs. Meanwhile, Sean climbed into the Battloid, and managed to get it moving well enough to get off the other two mecha, and get them separated enough to allow simultaneous rescue missions on them, as Louie showed up with a plasma torch and a medical kit.

The Bioroid was easily cut into with the torch, and Zor was removed, somehow still alive. He had third degree burns on his hands, forearms and legs, second degree on his face, under the helmet shield, and a mixture of first and second degree burns over the rest of his body, even under his uniform. The burns appeared to be of a flash-burn type, and his back was relatively untouched. Yet, despite the burns appearing of a radiation nature, the dosimeter came out clean. Alex could only surmise that it was the nature of the Master's power plants that made it so.

"Nova, radio your people back in town! Our needs have changed. See if they can find an intact burn unit, and a hover vehicle to send out here for the wounded. An actual ambulance would be great, but I'll take what I can get."

"Got it. Anything else?"

"Send Musica over to translate this equipment for us. Not everything has a universal design."

After making sure Zor's burns wouldn't be hurt more by the removal of the uniform, Alex and his new assistants cut off what they could, and began covering the burns with cooling gels and gauze, to keep them clean, but ventilated. While looking for more of the latter in the assault ship's supplies, he found an auto-injector the size of a large ink pen.

"What's this?" He asked Musica, passing it to her.

"Let me see - it's a pain suppressant; the one they used on the clones that attacked the city." She handed it back to him.

"How long does it last?:

"About a day, per dose-"

"Good," Alex replied, double-dosing Zor to be safe. "The last thing we need is for him to feel us bandaging the burns, or moving him."

"Alex! Over here!" Louie yelled from the Hovertank's remains.

"Have you got her out?" Alex asked, as he sprinted over.

"Yes. She's still alive, but we had to cut her out, seat and all. The medic working over here says we have to keep her immobile."

Alex went over to the medic, who was slowly trying to reposition Noel onto a makeshift stretcher (actually, one of the GMP Battloid's flight steering vanes).

"Corporal, what's her condition?"

"The best way to describe it is 'defying logic', sir. I don't know how she's still alive."

"What injuries have you found so far?"

"Massive concussive trauma, internal bruising and bleeding, and multiple fractures. Both arms and both legs have multiple fractures, and I've also detected a broken pelvis, cracks or breaks in most of her ribs, and possible dislocations in the spinal region, though apparently not severe enough for paralysis, as she still has reflexive responses."

"Any sign of consciousness?"

"No, but that's not surprising."

"Then, let's play it safe." Alex shot her with the auto-injector, into the neck (for lack of a better place), and kissed her on the forehead.

Ten minutes later, a hover ambulance crested the trees at high speed, slewed to a stop, and landed. Two CDU troopers, obviously not medical personnel, climbed out with one of the stretchers.

"You call for an ambulance?"

"Yeah. Did you find the burn unit I asked about?"

"It's where we got this. The south-side urgent treatment and triage center."

"Is there a doctor there?"

"The place was nothing but bodies; it was evacuated as one of the wave attacks of alien infantry came in. If any of the staff survived, they must have fled."

Alex turned to the two paramedic-trained troopers that had been aiding him. "Sam, Jack; load our two patients from the assault craft. You-" he looked at the ambulance's driver; "How many stretchers are there aboard, and how many patients can it carry?"

"Five, Lieutenant. The ambulance was a transport model, with two mounts per wall for non-critical cases, and a floor mount for supervised treatment. I hope you weren't expecting a triage wagon."

"No; it would have been nice, but it would have required multiple trips. We have four patients in critical status, that need more than what we can do in the field. As I was telling my two assistants, load the two stretcher cases in the assault craft first, and get the wounded GMP - the red-head over there doing a mummy imitation to take a stretcher ride as well, though she should be able to get to the ambulance under her own power. When the other three make it back from loading the other two, you help two of them with the burn case, and I'll supervise the loading of this one, myself."

"Yes, sir."

"One more thing; drive carefully back into town, for three reasons. First, these people are seriously hurt, and even a sharp turn could make their conditions worse. Second, one of the people the others are loading right now is General Emerson, and I'm sure you don't want to go down as the person who killed him with poor driving. Lastly, this patient is my fiancée, and if she dies as a result of your driving, I'll rip your heart out with my bare hands, and shove it back into place down your throat." Alex gave him a stare that could freeze boiling water.

"Understood, sir."

By the time Noel was loaded into the ambulance, Dana, Marie and Nova had settled on a course of action. Dana was to lead the Tyroleans to a training facility; a former US military base that was mothballed when not in use, and had maybe a dozen permanent staff. It would be a week-long trip by foot, but that was where Marie came in. Marie and several others would recover as much food and usable transport as possible, and bring them and the city's survivors to join the trek, carrying passengers in stages until there was transportation from all of them. Nova's team would stay in Monument as long as Alex did, searching for survivors and supplies, while protecting Alex's team and Marie's.

Nova and Marie, along with several others selected for their teams, escorted the ambulance, using two of the flight-capable Battloids and a standard military hover-deuce. The truck itself eventually sped ahead, when news came of work needing to be done at the clinic. It was close to midnight when the ambulance finally pulled into the clinic's ER loading ramp.

"Doesn't this place got any lights?"

"We're working on it, Alex," Louie yelled from down the hall. "A wall fell on the emergency generator, and we're digging it out."

"What condition are the facilities in?"

"There's a burn treatment tank, and five trauma units to ICU specs," Jack reported. "All are undamaged; we just need power."

"Stick Swensen into one bed, and tell her to behave. Since you have the better certification between you and Sam, you treat the more severe blast wound, while Sam treats the other. I'll monitor the other two patients while you're working, and we're waiting for the power to be restored."

"Which is which? We weren't with you when they occurred," Sam pointed out.

"Sam, your patient is General Emerson. He was hit by a partially deflected shot. Jack, your patient is the female. She's the sister of the leader of the Tyrolean defectors, so she's a VIP as well."

"Anything special I should know?"

Not really; the 'aliens' are just as human as we are."

"I figured as much, already. I once took a blood sample from a wrecked Bioroid. The pilot had type B blood, so I decided there not to test any further."

The two field medics went to work, finishing up about an hour later, as the power came back on. Alex set up the burn tank, strapping an oxygen mask over Zor's face, and lowering his now-naked, burned body totally into the thick liquid, that reminded Alex of a bacta tank from _**Star Wars**_. Finally, it came time to work on Noel.

"Why did you wait so long to work on her?" Jack asked. "She was the worst case of all."

Sam continued. "Didn't you say she was your fiancée?"

"Yes, we're engaged. But she got this way saving Zor's life. It was her choice to do that, and she was willing to sacrifice herself to keep him from dying. She would have wanted me to put her treatment as the lowest priority."

"Why did she think that guy was so important?" Sam asked.

"Zor is a clone of the creator of all Robotechnology; he is also the boyfriend of her cousin, Dana Sterling. Noel made a promise, long ago, to protect Dana's interests, regardless of the cost to herself."

They began their procedure by removing what remained of her armor and uniform, which had been incorporated into the field splints.

"What first?"

"I'll set up the IV feeds, while you two check the sets of the bones, and replace the field splints. Once you're done, we'll go in, looking for damage to repair. While we're working, I'll tell you a story - strange but true; her story."

"What is she - half-Zentraedi, like Sterling?"

"That, and more. We found this out only a few months ago; even she was clueless of the whole story until then. She's actually a clone of a friend of Lynn-Minmei; a singer named Karen Ellison."

"I thought you said she was half-Zent," Sam pointed out.

"That's what's so bizarre. Karen was half-Zentraedi, born in 2016 to two RDF pilots in skull Squadron. Something about the nature of her conception, during a fold accident, gave her incredible mental powers, as well as causing her to age to an adult within a year of her birth."

"You've got to be kidding."

"I wish I was. The majority of Karen's aging was a result of her extracting herself and Dana from a kidnaping attempt; before then, she looked about five. Overuse of her powers caused her to age to adulthood within a matter of days, and she used knowledge taken from Emil Lang's mind to reprogram the cloning chambers on the Factory Satellite to make Noel. She then sent Noel back to Earth with Dana, to keep her parents from freaking."

"What happened to Karen?"

"She faked a past, joined the RDF, and had a singing career in her off-time. She left with the REF, along with everyone who knew her secret. She sent a message back with Carpenter, explaining the whole, sordid mess."

"I'm done over here," Sam said. "Jack?"

"Almost. How did she get these injuries?"

"Near as we can tell, Zor was trying to destroy the alien plants in the Macross ruins by blowing up the ship; a suicide maneuver. Noel grabbed him as the ship exploded, and tried to use the powers she inherited from her sister to teleport both of them, mecha and all, to safety. Something went wrong, though, and they reappeared a couple klicks up, about fifteen minutes after the explosion. It was probably a side effect of just how much she teleported, as shed never done more than a half-ton before, and this time she took both a Spartas and a Bioroid simultaneously."

An hour later, they closed Noel up. Amazingly, all the internal bleeding had stopped on its own, though several organs appeared to be highly bruised, and needed to be closely monitored in case they failed. They moved her to one of the ICU rooms, then stretched out on cots in the lobby as the sun rose, letting two civilian RNs located by the others from the refugees take over the patient monitoring.

Looking up at a ventilation duct, whose cover had fallen off from the explosions that had destroyed the city center, an idea came to Alex, that he had to say to someone before he passed out from fatigue and forgot it.

"Louie, call Dana. Tell her I remembered where we can go, but we got to find a way to transport everyone there."

"Where?"

"Ask Dana what it was like living in a gun barrel."

"Huh? Alex?"

But, Alex had finally fallen asleep from exhaustion. Louis knew it wouldn't be an easy sleep, because of Noel, so he didn't wake Alex for a better explanation.

**Chapter Nine:**

"Now I've found out that nothing is given;

Don't know where the cards may fall.

All I know is that we gotta get it;

We've got to make it on our own..."

- Bobby Brown, "On Our Own" (1989)

**3 July 2030**

Alex and Jack Carlson had spent the last two weeks caring for their charges, while Sam went to the refugee center to handle minor cases there, and refer major cases back to town. In their time together, the two got to know each other well. They talked of Noel; and of Jack's brother, who worked as a doctor at Monument's central hospital with Alex, and who had died in the attack.

As for the patients, Emerson and Octavia were awake, but still spending most of their time in bed. When not helping Alex with patients, Jack spent most of his free time waiting on those two. The other two patients were not faring as well, however. Zor remained unconscious for the most part, which was just as well, considering the nature of his injuries. Noel, too, stayed comatose, though occasionally she would stir, unreachable, mumbling incoherently. Despite Alex's best efforts, Zor and Noel needed better care than he could give in their current surroundings, and the war to the east was not helping.

The time had come to move to a better location. If the Invid were coming soon, then it wouldn't be a good idea to stick around the epicenter of the explosion of the Flowers of Life. Dana, Marie and Nova met with Alex in the clinic's conference room, to compare notes and ideas.

"Marie, how goes the salvage op?"

"Not bad, but not great. We have about two hundred vehicles in running condition, mostly buses and delivery trucks. The problem is finding and transporting fuel for them."

"Nova, you're in charge of procurement. How are our supplies?"

"Food is not a problem. One thing Leonard did right, was to order the meat and dairy companies to go over to radiation treatment back in 2027, when those weird rumors about alien spies in Japan started surfacing. Add to that canned and rad-treated vegetable packages, and our population has enough food for five years. But, as Marie pointed out, we lack the fuel to put any real distance between us and the ruins of Macross. Petroleum products were rationed to the military, and nearly all stocks were destroyed with the bases. That leaves us with alcohol, and we don't have enough to fuel up all the vehicles."

"What about Battloids?"

"We've got 24 functional Battloids of varying types, and three of the fusion-powered Hovertanks."

"Do we have enough fuel to get to New Denver with the civilians, and enough food for a couple of weeks?"

"Barely; but that would mean leaving most of our supplies, and New Denver is just as dead as Monument. What do you have in mind?"

"I was looking through the station down the street -"

"That station sold out of fuel before the battle started," Nova countered.

"I know that; but I found some interesting things there. Namely, the phone listings for the fuel distributor, and the delivery route from the distillery to Monument."

"And this proves?" Dana asked.

"Monument was at the end of the distribution line. The beginning, according to the phone number, was in Wheatland, just three minutes travel time from the distillery."

"Where is Wheatland?" Marie asked.

"It's nearly a ghost town," Nova responded. "It was a small pre-Rain city near the border between the Monument and Denver sectors, in what used to be Wyoming. Most of the locals had drifted to one of the two major cities by the time of the REF departure, with most of those remaining working in the local industries. The industries were farming, logging, and the production of alcohol fuels from those crops."

"Exactly. And, Nova, what are the GMP regulations about civilian fuels during battle alerts?"

"All plants producing flammable substances are to shut down, and shipments of those products are to stay off the roads, and out of cities as well, if not already in one."

"The reason the station ran out of fuel was that the trucks were stuck in Wheatland, with orders not to move. They should still be there."

"Are you sure the plant is still there? The Masters could have destroyed it." Marie stated, looking for holes in the plan.

"The Masters showed no interest in such small targets, especially ones with no significant military value."

"Alex is right," Dana added, nodding in agreement. "If it wasn't Protoculture powered, or an obvious military installation, they could have cared less about it."

"The tanks have the best speed, so we'll send them out to check if the distillery and town are still there. If they are, we can organize a relocation within 48 hours of the news, as per our current emergency scramble plan."

"And where do we go from there?"

"The Southlands," Dana replied, answering Marie. "Alberquerque was hit like Monument and New Denver. But Mexico City and Brasilia were intact, the last time any of us got information from Command. Both are possible places of refuge; Mexico from mine and Noel's RDF connections, Brasilia because we lived there, and old-timers would recognize us."

"Mexico's worth a try," Nova agreed. "If they won't take us in, we should at least be able to get transportation to Brasilia or Nueva Janiero. Marie?"

"Count me in, too; that makes it unanimous. I'll radio over to the camp to have Louie and Angie prep for the trip down to Wheatland."

"Now, for something more important," Dana stated authoritatively, in the style of the late Anatole Leonard, then switched voices. "What's for dinner?" She forced a smile, but her attempt to lighten things in the face of their situation was transparent, and more for her own benefit than the others'.

"We're having steak; the special occasion is Rolf and Octavia's first meal not served on a tray."

"Is it only that?" Dana asked. "I've heard something has developed between your assistant and Octavia. Is this their first date?"

"Well, they are getting along pretty well. They very well could be in love; but it could just as easily be the 'Florence Nightingale effect', as the old movie called it."

"I, for one, hope it's for real."

"Yeah, Dana, but you've always been a romantic at heart; at least when your father's genes are dominant."

"Alex, if the Southern Cross wasn't history, I'd have you court martialed."

"For what? Teasing my superior officer?"

"Among other things."

"Well, dinner is in a half-hour, so I thought it might be a good idea to go ahead and decide sleeping arrangements. If you want to sleep where there is power, there are the two ICU rooms not in use or already claimed by someone else. The remaining normal rooms are either occupied, or have their breakers cut to conserve power. Dana, you also have the option of taking a stretcher set up in Zor's room, if you wish."

"I'll do that. The other two can take the ICU rooms. Where do you sleep?"

"My cot's in Noel's room, for personal reasons and to speed response."

Three days later, the two critical patients were loaded into separate hover ambulances, and the medical and salvage teams headed south, meeting the main convoy. Rolf and Octavia were mobile, now, but they rode in the ambulance that originally picked them up from the landing site, to minimize the chance for further injury. Bowie, Musica and Allegra chose to ride with them, to bring them up to date on their own lives. The couple that had led the clones to safety talked of marriage, but in many ways the Terran concept of it puzzled Musica almost as much as it had Miriya almost twenty years before.

The convoy traveled slowly, stopping every few hours for sanitary breaks, meals, and refueling. It was around noon on the second day of travel that they rolled into Wheatland. Their arrival brought hope, followed by two days of deliberation, after the imminent danger of yet another alien invasion was revealed. Finally, the decision was made for the workers and their families to join the caravan, along with any singles who wanted to leave. A few single workers stayed behind, to run the plant with a skeleton crew to supply the small communities in the mountains and Utah beyond. While preparations for the next stage were being finalized, Nova and Marie's teams from Monument made the trip up to Yellowstone Base, recovering several more Battloids and a handful of survivors from the ruins.

On the 13th, they left Wheatland, passing between the twin craters of Denver and New Denver on the evening of the 15th. Unlike Monument, New Denver had been hit by a full-scale annihilation beam from the descending mothership, producing a crater like those made by the most powerful guns in the Zentraedi bombardment nineteen years before. The 16th was spent getting under cover in the abandoned Zentraedi community near the ruins of Colorado Springs, as the data feed from a weather satellite indicated the potential for severe weather over the next several days. The exposed plains to the east and south were not good places to have hundreds of vehicles unprotected from tornadoes and horizontal wind gusts of hurricane strength - especially with most of the vehicles driven by persons with no experience in them prior to the relocation.

New Zarkopolis had a storied history. The underground complex was originally part of NORAD's Cheyenne Mountain complex, but it was turned over to the UEDC after the SDF-1's arrival. Deactivated in 2010 as part of the activation of Alaska Base, it was partially expanded and inhabited by Zentraedi from 2014 to 2020. All of its inhabitants left with the REF, but rumors of secret UEG activity there persisted until 2027. In its glory days as a Zentraedi community, it was one of Minmei's favorite venues, as the residents were in her words "...pardon the pun, my biggest fans." Dana used the two days it took for the weather to clear to show the Tyroleans the culture that the Zentraedi adopted and modified into their own, unique, society. It was an education for many of the humans as well, having grown up in the biased environment of the UEG/ASC autocracy.

On the morning of the 19th, the convoy started out again, reaching the ruins of Alberquerque Base two days later. The base had suffered a similar fate to its neighbors to the far north; but unlike those places, there were no survivors in the base environs. Then again, it had been a month since the end of the war, and the survivors had already abandoned the ruins for greener pastures. In the ruins of the motor pool, the scrounging teams found a wrecked Tyrolean assault ship on its side, where it had been overturned by the blast that had taken out the center of the base. In its underside, someone had used a laser welder to carve a message: "Gone to Fun City."

"Fun City?" Marie asked.

"Mexico City, darlin';" Sean replied. "The wildest duty station in the Northern Hemisphere. My rep was so bad prior to the war, that they altered unit rotation to keep the 15th from pulling duty there."

"Sounds like somebody had the same idea as you, Alex," Dana commented.

"Well, it provides us with an opportunity. Dana, you don't have anywhere near the skill with your powers as Noel or Karen -"

"Thanks a lot!"

"Just stating the obvious, Dana. However, one of the powers you should have, if yours are similar to Noel's, is the ability to read psychic impressions from objects, and pick up empathic thoughts from the person as they currently are. It's called object reading, and Noel and I experimented with its uses a few months ago, trying to sense Marie during her stint on the Moon, and Musica, through the hair sample Bowie accidentally brought back the first time."

"Did it work?"

"With Marie, yes. The hair sample was too marginal a connection, though. I want you to try to take a reading off the carved message. Try to focus on the person who made it, and see if they actually made it to Mexico City."

"I'll try... I won't guarantee I'll actually pick up anything, though." Dana removed her glove from her armor, and felt the curves of the letters, concentrating. "I'm getting something. He's alive, but I get the feeling he's having second thoughts on being there. Something's wrong... I sense oppression."

"From who? The local government? The RDF? The Masters, even?"

"I seem to get the a feeling about the Southern Cross. I can't tell more, other than I don't think Mexico City is an option for permanent relocation, anymore."

"We don't have the fuel to reach anywhere else, except returning north. But, there is another option. Nova, how many jet packs do we have?"

"A dozen; what is going through that devious mind of yours?"

"I want some volunteers to take a hover jeep as far as they can, with spare fuel aboard. They should be able to get within 150 kilometers of the city. From there, they should be able to fly down, check out the city, and fly back to the jeep to wait for us. When we catch up, in about a week if the bridges over the Rio Grande are intact, they can brief us as to what they found. Then, we can figure out what to do. Preferably, Civil Defense armor types need to be worn, even if the wearers aren't CD personnel."

"What you're proposing is a recon team. But, what do we do after it is done? A decap raid? Hit and run for supplies? We surely can't do a full assault on the city, with civilians in tow!"

"I'm thinking of something similar to an old 1970s gag line."

"Huh?"

Alex slipped into a heavy fake Hispanic accent. "I'm hijacking this plane to Cuba!" He then dropped the accent. "Or, more accurately, to Brasilia."

"Alex, you're demented!" Dana laughed.

"Our only problems will be the mecha, and if enough transports are there for the people."

"If the airlines were grounded from the alert, and the flights haven't resumed, the transports for the people should be no problem," Nova added. "Getting the people to them will be the biggest problem on that side of the equation. The mecha, however..."

"The mecha might not be a problem," Marie commented, rejoining the conversation. "One of the Defender class shuttles was based there, and it had to RTLS when one of its engines malfunctioned. With the engine out, it can't reach orbit, but it should still be capable of atmospheric flight, and it can carry up to fifty mecha and over two hundred troops in standard combat configuration. Now, what's this I hear about a commando raid, and can I come along?"

**27 July 2030**

The caravan had caught up to their advance scouts, after five days of travel. The shuttle, the Ben Dixon, was sitting on its launch cradle, and appeared to be unattended. A dozen other large craft lined the runways, from cargo carriers to AWACS craft to an antique 747-400 that belonged to AeroBrasil. The planes they needed were there; the challenge now was getting control of them, by any means necessary.

**Chapter Ten:**

"(and) Always you'll be blood and soul part of me

The second element - I am longing for you.

(and) Always you'll see that you reflect on me

My second element - Are you missing me too?"

- Sarah Brightman, "The Second Element (Part One)" (1993)

**29 July 2030**

Further investigation showed that Dana's feelings were right; the city's problems stemmed from the Southern Cross - specifically, the Civil Defense forces. The CDU had always been corrupt in the city; patriotic and opposed to collusion with the enemy, but still corrupt. When the opportunity of a total collapse of hemispheric authority presented itself, the CDU Brigadier overthrew the civilian government, seizing power for himself. The RDF troops of the city's base, along with the rotational ASC units, had to flee for their lives when the CDU turned, as they were considered unwelcome outsiders. The CD units were specialists in urban combat, and were extremely deadly in the only city they ever trained in. Any idea of taking the airfield by force was ruled out.

This left the backup plan, which had its own risks. A team would go in, led by Dana and her nascent powers, and try to locate persons involved with the city's defense that would be willing to help them, in light of the current regime. They managed to hit the jackpot, finding two sentries from the airfield garrison that were sick of the corruption and against the coup. The men helped them formulate the plan to take the airport by subterfuge.

A team would be sent to the gate the men guarded, in the early hours of the morning. They would pretend to be refugees from the north (not a big leap there), looking to sign up, and the guards would get them access to the airport in the guise of taking them in to their commanders. Once in, the other night watches would be disabled, the airport seized, and the refugees brought in through the cleared gate.

One thing on their side was that no air activity was going on; all the combat aircraft had bugged out with the RDF, leaving only transports and support craft. This meant that the airfield was operating on a skeleton crew, for appearance's sake, at best. On the other hand, there was no way to know how ready for flight the remaining aircraft were, or how long it would take the city's defenders outside the air base to figure out something was wrong. One wrong move or delay, and hundreds would die.

**31 July 2030, 03:21**

"Good morning, sir," the guard at the gate said to Alex as his team approached. "How may I help you?" The guard was nowhere near as alert or hostile as he should have been. But, then, they had found this guard's opinion of his bosses useful, as he was normally much more concerned about his position than his coworkers. In fact, the others were playing poker in the small back room of the guard shack.

"Who do we see to join up down here?" Alex responded, as per the arranged code. "My men and I just spent the last six weeks walking here from Monument."

"Pretty bad up there, wasn't it?"

"Awful; bodies everywhere. The fat man was at ground zero."

"A shame," the sergeant chuckled. He turned to the other three men in the guard shack. "I'll take these men to the watch officer, with Private Ramirez. Corporal, you're in charge till I get back."

"Yes, sir."

"It's a shame I won't get any of that coffee; oh well, I guess I can just drink Ortega's while he's talking to these gentlemen. Now, before we let you in, you'll have to turn in those weapons here. Can't take any chances, you know."

"We understand." Alex motioned for the others to put their (non-functional) rifles into the rack of the guard shack.

"Follow me, then."

The sergeant and his fellow conspirator led the team through the gate, and down the main road from the entrance. Several buildings down, they dropped out of sight of the shack, and turned into the alley between buildings. The sergeant led them to a set of garbage cans, opened them, and began passing out the stunners he'd hid there the previous evening.

"The men in the control tower never wear armor, except during alerts. As there aren't any regularly scheduled flights anymore, they only keep a staff of four there, at most. Two of you should be able to take them, easily - if they don't actually ask to join you. The rest of us will need to go to the hangars, take out the guards there, and prep the planes."

"What about the two you left at the shack?" Sean asked. "Won't they expect you back?"

"That was decaf coffee I made, with enough sleep juice to tranquilize an elephant. Those two drink coffee by the half-liter mug, and tonight that will be their undoing. Plus, I disconnected the phone and the radio aerial."

"How many persons are there in the hangars?" Dennis asked.

"A half-dozen guards, and four maintenance personnel. The latter are TASC personnel from the Dixon's tech crew, and were captured when the rest of the unit fled. They're kept to work on the planes - usually two at a time, at gunpoint, while the other two are held hostage."

"Okay, when the aircraft and hangars are secured, send Dana the password to have the convoy make its approach."

"That was 'Cortez returns'," Angie replied.

"Yeah. Remember from history class what happened to Mexico City when Cortez showed up the first time?"

"Cute, Alex."

"I thought so, when I came up with it. We'll bring the jets over to the concourse for loading, but the mecha teams and your group will have to come out to the shuttle ramp. So will Jack and Sam, with the ambulance; be prepared to help them load it into the shuttle."

"Understood."

"It's 0334; we have about eighty-five minutes before the gate situation is noticed," their local conspirator noted. "The gate was scheduled to be locked from 0330 to 0500, to allow the guards to take their meal breaks in shifts. Our break was the one scheduled for 0330 to 0415."

"And if a call comes into the booth?"

"I already thought of that. When I unplugged the phone in the booth, I plugged in a cordless phone base unit, with the ringer off. I had a friend rig it with a booster unit for both the base and the hand unit months ago, so I could use it to make personal calls after the sat-phones went down."

"Nice improvisation; you'll fit in well. Angie, you and Louie go with him to the tower. Marie, Dennis; you're with me to the shuttle. The rest of you handle the hangar situation." The teams split up.

"Alex, why did we have to wear ground unit armor?"Marie asked.

"Because there weren't supposed to be any TASC survivors from Monument. Think about it; the survivors of your unit went to ALUCE or Farside, and when you and Dennis went missing, to go after Rolf, you were considered 'presumed dead' after a day, and declared legally dead after three days."

"I never thought about it that way; I'm usually the one filling out the paperwork and writing the next of kin. Usually, I witness the death myself, or one of the other squad members did, and it's recorded on the sensor logs, so that we can confirm it back at base."

"Well, that's someone else's job, now, and they're probably still scratching their head trying to figure out where you disappeared to."

They made their way to the shuttle, which was sitting in its sunken launch area. The gate to the cargo ramp was sealed, and the elevator had a security keypad lock.

"Any ideas?"

"Let's see... If the base was taken over during the confusion after the destruction of Monument, then the CD personnel probably haven't had the time nor the means to update the personnel files since." Marie tapped in her security code, and the security door slid open. "And there you have it; rank has its privileges, combined with my security clearance upgrade I got as brevet commander of ALUCE."

"Well, what are we waiting for?"

They entered the elevator, and dropped down to the shuttle's level. After using the code again, on the airlock, they entered the shuttle. As they stepped onto the bridge, they heard a safety click off.

"Don't move. I don't want to kill anyone, if I don't have to."

They turned their heads to find a man in a dirty TASC uniform, holding a pulse rifle. He looked to be in his mid-forties, one of the original TASC veterans from its formation from the conversion of two RDF squadrons.

"Identify yourself, soldier," Marie ordered.

"Master Sergeant John Landers; 2nd TASC flight instructor."

"Put that gun down;" Marie requested. "We're friendlies. I'm Major Crystal, of the 15th TASC."

"Black Lions, huh? If so, then why are you wearing GMP armor?"

"Because we needed it to sneak in here, so we could steal this shuttle. My companions are Lieutenant Brown, of the 12th TASC, and Lieutenant Tyler, of the 15th ATAC."

"Marie!" both men exclaimed, seeing as she had blown their covers to a stranger.

"It's all right, guys. While I've never met the sergeant face to face before, I do recognize him from several conferences I attended before the war. He's definitely not one of the Civil Defense goons."

"And, I recognized you, but I had to be sure. Welcome aboard the Dixon. I could use a little help bypassing the telemetry computer, so that the Op Center doesn't read our powering up the main reactor. You folks traveling alone?"

"Not by a long shot," Dennis replied, removing the armor to better be able to reach the systems Landers was already working on. "We've got a small team in the tower, and another team reported freeing the maintenance crew about a minute before we came in here. But, we're just the advance team."

"Advance for what?"

"We're going to attempt to steal every major transport here, to haul refugees to Brasilia. They're coming through a guard post we compromised. There are about three thousand of them, half from Monument, the other half from the Tyrolean flagship."

"What happened up there? Reports indicated Protoculture problems after Monument was destroyed, in a radius over a thousand kilometers from the city."

"It's a long, weird, story," Alex replied. "Anyway, we intend to use the shuttle to haul three dozen of our mecha, and an ambulance loaded with VIPs. Due to the unlikelihood of the mecha coming in unnoticed, we're bringing them in last, after we get the transports loaded."

"Who are the VIPs?"

"Two of them are General Emerson and one of the leaders of the Tyrolean refugees. Both were shot in our rescue of Emerson from the ship."

"Emerson's alive? How come he hasn't done something about the local morons?"

"He's been recovering from his wounds, but we haven't had the opportunity or the means to try to convince the European and Asian commands that he's alive, and the remaining North American commands are fighting a border war with Quebec, so they're too busy to care. As far as they all know, he died when his ship blew up, after ramming one of the alien ships."

"That's understandable."

"But, he's almost fully recovered, now. The real reason for the ambulance are the other two patients. One is the person really responsible for the Masters' defeat. In fact, he killed all three of their leading council himself, in retribution for how they'd brainwashed him into their servant. You've probably heard of him; he was their primary field commander in the opening months of the war; Zor."

"Their general turned on them?"

"Well, actually, he was something else; he was also a clone of the person who created Robotechnology, and their cloning technology. It's another of those long, oddball stories that we can explain in the flight south, to kill time. Zor had actually been serving in my ATAC unit for several months, before the battle."

"You said you were with the 15th ATAC, right?"

"Yes?"

"Can you tell me about one of your team - whether she survived the battle? She's the daughter of one of my first cousins, who went on the SDF-3 mission."

"Which one would that be - Sterling or Freeman?"

"Noel Freeman."

"I was afraid you were going to say that, when you said 'she'," Alex replied. "Noel's our other critical patient. She was injured, trying to save Zor from the inside of the flagship, as it was blowing up. Treating her's been really difficult for me as a doctor, as Noel and I are engaged. I'm hoping that they can stabilize her condition at Brasilia."

"Then her condition's not good."

"It's closer to 'hopeless' than it is to 'bad', to be truthful. But, where there's life, there's hope."

At 0400, the buildings were secure, and the guards back at the shack were taken out, being too drugged to respond quickly enough to prevent their stunning. The rescued TASC began the fueling of the planes, while the order was given for the buses to start coming in, five at a time. The first bus had been stacked to provide as many pilots and maintenance persons as possible, and its arrival sped up the process of preparing the aircraft. After each aircraft was fueled, it was towed to the concourse, and boarded by the passengers. None of the jets would be powered up until all were loaded.

By 0440, the last bus was pulling into the unloading zone at the front of the terminal. It would take them ten minutes to board their plane.

"Okay, give Dana the signal to come in, and have the guys in the tower make the last jet." Alex pulled on his headset, and spoke to the flight crews. "Folks, we're at T minus twenty. When I call out your number, respond with your status."

He started with the 747, which had Sean at the controls, and worked his way through six VTOL transports, four cargo planes, and two command and control aircraft.

"Alex, the tower and concourse are clear," Angie reported from the last aircraft, a mid-air refueling tanker. "Our tanks are full, including the refueling system, if needed."

"Stand by." He switched frequencies. "Dana, what is your ETA?"

"We're at the sentry gate, and have the runway in sight. The Battloids are a minute behind us, so about two minutes for them."

Alex turned to the pilots on the shuttle. "Open the gates to the boarding hatch, and the hatch itself. They're almost here." He toggled back to the original frequency. "Gentlemen, start your engines!"

Five minutes later, lights were coming on in the distance, as all the jet engines sped up to operational speed. Dana was aboard, and had made it to the bridge.

"Welcome aboard, Lieutenant," John said, saluting her. "Max and Miriya would be proud of you."

"Thank you. I take it you knew them?"

"They were my flight instructors."

"Got me a seat around here?"

"Take one of the weapons consoles."

"Sounds fine by me. Alex, tell the civilian planes to begin their take-off procedures."

"Roger. Attention, everyone, this is your scramble order. We have calm conditions, so runway direction is not a problem. Sean, take the auxiliary runway, parallel to the maintenance taxiway. Cortez One, take runway 9-Left, Cortez Two, 9-Right. Three and Four, taxi to 12-Left and 12-Right respectively, and begin rolls as soon as One and Two clear the intersection of the runways. Five and Six, follow One and Two, waiting for Three and Four to clear, and Seven and Eight, follow Three and Four, waiting for Five and Six. The rest of you are VTOL, and have clearance to take off immediately. More orders to follow when you're airborne."

Ten minutes later, the mecha were secure, and their own countdown was underway as the last two planes began their take-off rolls.

"Guys, we've got company!" Dana called out. "Looks like they brought their entire arsenal."

"Are Seven and Eight clear?"

"They're off the ground and climbing. The bogeys are coming from behind them, but none of them appear to be tracking the departing aircraft. It's us they want."

"Time?"

"Thirty seconds to lift-off. We can't rush it any sooner."

"Dana, you and the others in the gunner seats! See if you can power up the side turrets and give us some covering fire. Do NOT use the missiles! Those are micro-nukes, not HE."

"Already doing so." Dana opened fire, purposefully firing low to go for mobility hills. Others weren't being as charitable, annihilating troop carriers, ADATS, tanks and Battloids without remorse. Of course, the ADATS vehicles, with their heavy-duty missiles, had to be taken out.

"Five seconds! Secure the guns till we're in the air!"

The shuttle's three remaining engines fired, as the shuttle hung by its contra-grav thrusters over the airport. Normally, the shuttle would have risen a kilometer into the air before engaging forward thrust, but in this case speed was the only consideration. Only twenty meters above the ground level, its rocket exhaust washed over the incoming vehicles, resulting in most incinerating or exploding. As the shuttle's movement forward began, it continued to climb.

"Set course 160, six thousand meters cruising altitude," Marie instructed.

"Aye, ma'am."

"John, how fast can we safely go in this condition?"

"About Mach two, below ten kilometers. At higher altitudes, we can go faster, even still reach orbit, but she'd steer like a pig, which is why we launched everything at the edge of space, then aborted back to base."

"Then take the speed up to Mach 1.5 at the same altitude of the other transports, until we catch up to them, then drop speed to match theirs. What's our ETA to Brasilia, given those parameters?"

"Four hours."

"Alex, you're done up here. Go back and take care of your patients. Dana, if you see pursuit, nuke them. We don't have the time to play with them."

"Understood."

Alex went back into the mid-section of the ship, and climbed into the ambulance. Jack was there, tending to Zor.

"How are they?"

"Not good. We've only got a day's worth of the treatment solution left for the transport tank Zor's in. We need to get him back into a hospital model soon. As for Noel; Alex, I don't think she's going to make it. Her condition has been deteriorating ever since you left. I figure she's got about six hours left."

Alex checked the charts, and confirmed Jack's prognosis. Noel wouldn't live to see nightfall, and not even Brasilia's medical center could do anything about it. He reached over, and stroked her hair.

"Alex; I'm sorry; I truly am. We did everything we could."

Alex didn't hear Jack, as all he could hear was his own sobbing.

It had been six hours since they left fold-space, and Karen felt very uneasy. In fact, she nearly fainted at the end of the fold. As a result, she had been ordered to go lie down for a while. What could it be, that was affecting her so? She had used her own powers to force herself to sleep, but was almost immediately reawakened by those odd feelings. Finally, she tried putting up her psionic defenses, and the sensation lessened, but did not go away completely. Something was very wrong. And, since it was happening to her mentally, there was a limited number of things it could be. She sat upright, and pulled her shoes back on, before standing and teleporting to the bridge of the Korra'ti.

**Chapter Eleven:**

"...And you coming back to me, is against all odds -

It's the chance I got to take..."

- Phil Collins, "Against All Odds"

**31 July 2030, 09:42**

"Alex, wake up; We're almost there," Dana said, prodding him.

"Hunh?" Alex had fallen asleep from fatigue, his body overriding his concern for Noel, as he had been awake for forty hours prior to the shuttle launch, and had only twenty hours sleep total that week.

"You passed out after coming back here, so Jack and Sam stretched you out and let you sleep."

"Is she-"

"She's still hanging on, for now."

"Dana, why?"

"You know why, and so do I. But, we have to move on with our lives, else her sacrifice will mean nothing. We're needed back up front, so wash your face off, and let's go."

The shuttle had went ahead of the jets, and had reduced altitude as part of normal landing approach procedure. However, things were not that normal in the cockpit and command center.

"Dana, we're not having our requests for landing instructions acknowledged," Marie stated as Dana and Alex entered the shuttle's nerve center.

"How far are we away?"

"Less than a minute. The base should be coming into view any second - Oh, God."

Brasilia Base was nothing but wreckage. The upper levels of the base were gone, hit by one of the Masters' fission beams, though apparently not at full power, else the crater would have been much wider and deeper.

"What do we do now?"

"Sensors are picking up active mecha on the ground. Somebody's still here, and if our info's correct, part of the base may have survived."

"You've got to be kidding, Tyler," Dennis commented.

"Wait and see, Dennis. I say we land."

"I agree," Dana added. "No more running; for now, at least."

The shuttle slowed to a hover, then dropped down to a clear section of land that used to be a parade ground. The jets, meanwhile, went to an orbit of the position until they received clearance to land. As the shuttle opened its hatches, company arrived. Company, in this case, was a welcoming committee of VF-1 Valkyries that stepped out of the surrounding woods, gun pods leveled. One of the Valkyries walked over to where Dana and the others had gathered, at the bottom of the ramp.

"Identify yourselves!" demanded an amplified voice from the Battloid.

"Uh, Dana; I think you should be the one to handle this."

"Thanks a lot, Dennis, but I think I understand why. My word goes a lot farther with the RDF than any other ASC officer's."

Dana stepped forward, looking up to the head/sensor inputs of the VF-1S.

"Lieutenant Dana Sterling, Southern Cross 15th ATAC Squadron. I've come here leading a group of refugees from the north. As for the shuttle, we needed a ride, and I couldn't stand seeing a ship named for my father's friend in the hands of that scum in Mexico."

The Valkyrie responded by switching to Guardian mode, and opening its canopy. The pilot climbed out, and walked over to them.

"Pleased to meet you, Lieutenant. Sorry for the rough greeting, but we had to make sure you were telling the truth over the radio. I'm Commander Thomas Falco, Avenger Squadron, RDF Reserve."

"I would have done the same. Is there any of the base left?"

"Are you serious? There's a crater where the central structure used to be!"

"What about the levels at the bottom of the shaft?"

"What levels?"

"There are two sub-levels at the bottom, originally intended for the Cannon personnel and machinery. They were modified into a deep command facility, but were mothballed after the REF left, because of the costs involved with operating the elevator. When I was a child, we lived down there, for my protection. The residential level is probably blocked by debris from the surface, but the command level should still be accessible."

"What use would that be?"

"The bottom levels were fully independent and self-sufficient. They had their own power supply, life support, and medical facilities. The actual antennae for the sensors and radios are disguised in one of those hills over there." She pointed to a series of rolling hills, that paralleled the furthest runway. "I found that out when I was six, and Dad got in trouble for us having a picnic on it, and our radio caused interference in some of the receivers. Anyhow, we should be able to reach the moon bases or Scandinavia with the equipment down there, to request assistance."

"Also, Commander," Alex added, "I was wondering if two of your men could assist us with an ambulance in the shuttle."

"Assist, how?"

"We need to get the patients aboard it to the medical center in that command level, but the hover systems could never handle that kind of descent on their own."

"Yes, we can carry it down, as long as the driver keeps his hover systems on, to help keep the descent speed down."

"Then, let's do it, as soon as we get the ambulance out. Oh, and can we tell the planes of refugees that they can land, now?"

"Certainly."

Thirty minutes later, they were near the bottom of the shaft, sitting on a platform cut into the side of the cannon barrel. Dana went over to the access panel, and pulled down a cover to reveal a keyboard and hand scanner. Placed her right hand on the scanner, then typed in her mother's maiden name with the keyboard after the hand scan was complete.

"Personnel identified as Lieutenant Marie Freeman, Skull Squadron," a voice responded from the console, obviously computer generated. "You may enter."

"How did you do that?" Falco asked. "You're not Marie Freeman."

"Actually, she is me, or a reasonable facsimile. It's a long story, and I don't know all of it myself. But, what it boils down to is that she was created by someone cloning me, and Daddy almost killed Scott before he found out that it was someone else who did the cloning."

"Forget I asked. Where to, first?"

"Go to the command center, and start the reactivation sequence, while Dr. Tyler and I take his patients to the medical wing. You can get there by following the red arrows on the floor. Once you get in contact with the surface, have one of your pilots fly General Emerson down here."

"Emerson's with you? We thought he was dead."

"He nearly was. Two of the TASC with us rescued him from the Tristar, but they were captured by the Masters. We rescued him from the ship that destroyed Monument, before the ship itself was destroyed by one of the patients in the ambulance. We've been acting on Emerson's behalf, but not saying so publicly, as to not endanger his recovery. You remember how he got in command of the space fleet, after all." It was a bit of a stretch, but was reasonably close to the truth, Dana thought.

Alex and Jack steered Noel's stretcher, while Dana and Sam took Zor's, in search of the medical center. For obvious reasons, with was easy to reach from the entrance, taking only two turns off of the main corridor.

"Okay, we're here;" Sam muttered. "But, how well stocked is it?"

"It should be fully stocked, as it was supposed to be the overflow facility for the topside center," Dana replied, turning on the lights. Everything was covered with plastic sheets, but appeared to be in their proper places. "And, unlike normal standby facilities, it was too hard for looters to get to."

"How come you know so much about this place, Lieutenant?" Sam asked.

"Mom left me her base abstract, and I retrieved it from my barracks during the downtime outside Monument, when we were making the plans to possibly come here. Until then, I never understood why she would leave me something like that, or why it was Marie's password instead of hers that was written in it - at least until I found out about the whole clone thing. But, she evidently realized that if any place would be a safe place for me to run to, it would be here. I read it on the flight down."

Alex wheeled Noel to the first ICU room, turned on the monitors, ran their test modes, then hooked up Noel to them. It wasn't going to be any use doing it, but going through the motions seemed to be better for him than just standing back and watching her die. After finishing with her, he went over to the burn unit, and helped Jack and Sam transfer Zor from the cocoon they brought him down in, to the full tank.

Zor was actually showing signs of improvement, and would be ready for transfer to a bed within a week, at which time they'd stop administering the drugs that kept him from waking. It would take months for his regenerated muscles to regain any semblance of normal tone, because of his inactivity. But the enforced sleep regimen was a much better way of handling burn patients than the old way of letting them suffer through the pain while awake, since the pain of the burns and the healing tissue were too much for even the strongest narcotics while awake. Somehow, the narcoleptic drugs kept the patient from feeling any of it, without the danger of addiction. The side effect, though, was a coma-like sleep. After then, would be the weeks of skin grafts to the areas that didn't respond well to the tank, and hair follicle transplants, using lab-cloned cells of those that survived in his burned flesh. Zor might be out of the woods, so to speak, but it was still a long road ahead before he would recover fully, not counting the psychological help he needed from his abuse inflicted by the Masters.

Dana had since left to join Emerson in the command center, leaving Alex to his bedside vigil with Noel. From the outside, she looked pale and undernourished, but otherwise healthy. However, it was her internal injuries that were killing her slowly, as her systems slowly failed. That they were failing even more slowly than they should was more of a burden than a blessing. He bent over her, and kissed her forehead, her lips being covered by an oxygen mask.

"I'm sorry I let you down, Noel. But, you had to save Zor, and I know why. Are the Shapings you and Zand spoke of so fickle, that a life must be given in order to save one? We could have had it all, but you answered a higher calling, and changed everything. I've tried to understand, really, I have; but, it hurts too much."

Suddenly, Alex's field handset squawked. "Alex, come to the command center, quick!"

"What is it, Dana?"

"The Korra'ti! It's back!"

"Wasn't that the RDF Zentraedi ship that disappeared when the Masters arrived?"

"Yes! And it's brought back Highlander Squadron!"

"Highlander? Isn't that-"

"Yes, it's the squadron Noel's family belongs to!" Dana calmed herself, before continuing. "I thought you might want to be the one to break the news to them about Noel."

"You're right; I should be the one. I'll be right there."

Dana met him half-way down the corridor, not wanting to face Noel's family (not to mention her own sister) without Alex there to answer their questions. They walked into the communications arena together, as Falco and Emerson talked to Scott Freeman.

"Dana! How are you?"

"I'm okay, Uncle Scott - or, more accurately, brother-in-law."

"So, you found out."

"It was a side-effect of finding out about Noel's past. About Noel; Alex needs to speak to you and her immediate family."

"What's wrong?" Scott asked, as Karen, Shannon and Kayra came into view of the pickup on that end. "I thought Rolf was being evasive when we asked about her earlier."

"I'm not sure h-how to say this," Alex said as calmly as he could. "It's been pretty hard on me as well. You see, Noel and I were engaged to be married, before the big battle six weeks ago. In that battle, Noel was critically injured while saving the life of Zor Prime, a clone of the original Zor that had turned on the Masters. She suffered massive internal trauma in the fall, where she attempted to teleport herself and Zor to safety from the explosion of the Masters' flagship. Despite my best efforts as a doctor, I could only prolong the inevitable. She'll probably die in the next few hours; it's a miracle she's lasted this long."

"No!" Karen screamed, and disappeared from the screen. A second later, she reappeared in front of them. Alex marveled at how much she resembled Noel, so much that it seemed Karen had not aged at all since Noel's creation, and now appeared the same age or even younger than her clone.

"Where is she?"

"In the med center."

"Take me to her, please!"

"I don't know what you think you can do to help her, but I'm willing to try anything at this point," Alex replied, taking off in a half-run to stay ahead of the person who had asked him to lead her there. If she could help her sister, it would not be any help if she took a wrong turn. They reached Noel's room just as the heart monitor indicated cardiac arrest.

"Noel! NO!" Karen cried out, stepping behind the bed and grasping her sister's head. "Please, LIVE!" Karen seemed to go rigid, as a dim aura surrounded her and Noel. "Dana, help us!"

"How?"

"Take her hand, and concentrate on her being better! I'll handle the actual steering of your powers, for now!" Dana did so, and Noel's heart restarted, weakly at first.

"C'mon, Noel; don't give up!" Dana pleaded, eyes watering from the strain of trying to get an unpracticed ability she hadn't even known she had to work, by brute force if necessary.

Incredibly, Alex watched Noel's condition improve, but it was still shaky. He went to her other side, and bent over her. "Noel, come back to me, please!" He removed the oxygen mask, and kissed her on the lips, as if all the old fairy tales were true. As he did so, he felt her stir, and he replaced the mask, backing off to give the others room to work their miracle. Finally, after over a minute of concentration, they released Noel, and stood back as she awakened from her comatose state. Alex rushed to her side.

"A-Alex? Where am I?"

"Home, Noel. You've come home." He pulled her to him, crying.

Life would go on.

Two days later, the Korra'ti sat down at Brasilia, after making a side trip to the Factory Satellite and the outer solar system colonies to deliver the most recent blueprints for the Alpha, Beta and Cyclone mecha. On August 5th, Rolf Emerson announced his recovery to the world, using the occasion to perform a multiple wedding. Noel had to be wheeled down the aisle, but she and Alex were married. As part of the same ceremony, Marie Crystal became Marie Phillips, Nova married Dennis, Bowie married Musica, and, at the last minute, Jack Carlson and Octavia joined the line of couples at the altar.

Everyone knew that there would be tough times ahead, in the next year and beyond. The Invid were on their way to Earth, and preparations had to be made for their arrival. A freedom fighter network would have to be established, to be ready and in place before the Invid arrived. Rolf and Scott had no illusions about actually trying to stand up to the Invid in their initial arrival, especially with the world splintered even worse than before the last war, and with nearly all the remaining armies depleted. The surviving ASC personnel had to be retrained and rearmed to REF standards, provided that the fragmented factions remaining of the UEG allowed their troops to participate, and could restrain themselves from launching a futile, suicidal attack on the invaders. Lastly, the Tyrolean refugees needed to be sent home, out of harm's way, except for the few who wished to remain to face the Invid. Louie had already come up with the theoretical modifications to be done to Wolfe's ship, to allow real-time folds, but Wolfe had to get there, first. And they had to work fast, as Earth's darkest hour was yet to come.


	14. Book Three Side Story: Stay With Me

"You better hope and pray

that you make it safe

Back to your own world

You better hope and pray

that you wake one day

In your own world

'Cause when you sleep at night

they don't hear your cries

In your own world

Only time will tell

if you can break the spell

Back in your own world..."

She stumbled as she felt the blast of the explosion - too close, she knew. The bright flash of fire faded into the enveloping darkness, without even the hint of light. Confused, disoriented, she scrambled through the void, for what seemed like hours, but was probably only minutes. Finally, she burst into almost blinding light, light that was really the very dim light of sunset. Emerging from the darkness with her was Zor. As long as Zor was free, there was still hope.

He takes her hand, and they run down the street, hoping for sanctuary, their alibi. The streets are at once both familiar and alien, under a sky where the setting sun is joined by a massive planet overhead. Two blocks from safety, they round a corner, and run into a security patrol of armored troopers. Quickly, Zor gives an excuse for their curfew violation, that the patrol accepts - until it is interrupted by a message from their controllers to hold anyone caught on the streets, under suspicion of treason.

Zor confronts the guards, hoping to maneuver them into a position to where they can make a break for it, to elude the troopers. His ploy fails, and they raise their guns at him. Seeing that they intend to fire, she dives in front of Zor, taking the shots meant for him. She feels her life force slipping away, as he drops to his knees, cradling her in his arms. Time passes, then he starts looking cross at her.

"Aren't you supposed to say 'I'll love you forever'?" Zor asks her.

"Hunh...?" Noel asks back, trying to make sense of her surroundings.

"Haven't you read the script? This is your big death scene."

"WHAT THE HELL?"

Morlock Productions Presents

**Robotech: The Freeman Chronicles**

Book Three Side Story

**"Stay With Me: The Last Temptation of Noel"**

Noel stood up, shaking the cobwebs from her mind; at least, she tried to. Something was wrong, terribly wrong, but she couldn't quite figure out what.

Zor and the troopers just stared at her, before Zor angrily asked "WHAT is your problem? You're supposed to just lay there in my arms and die!"

"Boy, have YOU got the wrong girl. That was my grandmother's death scene, not mine."

"Are you so sure?" Zor asked. "What's the last thing that you remember, before waking up here?"

"An explosion, and diving for Zor -"

"See? You're in the right place..."

"No, I'M NOT. This little scene happened decades before I was born."

"Then, who are you?"

"I'm Kar - Noel. Noel Freeman, clone of Karen Freeman, granddaughter of Musica of Tiresia. Who the hell are you, IMPOSTER?"

"Just someone trying to get by, since my own universe was cruelly stifled. The 'Big H' offered me a job here, to watch over your death, and I was hardly in a position to refuse."

"Who?"

"None of your business, really." The background shifted, and the false Tiresia faded into wisps of gray, along with the troopers. No apparent surfaces remained. The pseudo-Zor shifted form as well, into one resembling a perverse cross between a female mime and a spider. "There. Is this better?"

"Not really. Where are we?"

"Who are you? What do you want? _HOW CAN YOU HAVE ANY PUDDING IF YOU DON'T EAT YOUR MEAT?_" The last question was screeched, maniacally.

"Can't you ask anything original?"

"I only have what's in your head to work with, toots. How would YOU like to be orphaned by your maker, in favor of a VR-web-surfing cat?"

"I wish you'd make some sense."

"Honey, death NEVER makes any sense; at least not to the dying."

"So, you're a manifestation of Death."

"No, I'm more of a manifestation of Protoculture; I'm just moonlighting as the Grim Reaper to make ends meet."

"Whatever... If I'm dying, then how did I get this way?"

"Now, THAT'S a question. You teleported yourself and that Zor putz out of an exploding spaceship, and missed the ground - at first."

"At first?"

"There's the matter of a half-kilometer fall, that you and you mecha ended up on the bottom of a three-deep pile at the end of."

"Three?"

"Someone actually tried to catch the two of you - didn't work."

"Did the others survive?"

"That's none of my business, or yours."

"I disagree."

"Well, we can hardly find out, can we?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"You're in no condition to ask, even telepathically. Every bit of your psionic potential has been diverted to your healing powers. If not for that, you would have died weeks ago."

"Weeks? But I just got here."

"Not exactly. Your mind was so taxed by what it was unconsciously doing, that it was too far under to do anything coherently, for the first few weeks. Then, this started, and you've been so distracted in the other manner, from the demands on your body and mind, that this conversation takes hours per exchange. To use a computer analogy, it's like a high speed computer connection ramped down to 300 baud, due to noise in the connection. I HATE that fucking cat..."

"Such hostility..."

"You were expecting Saint Theresa of Calcutta?" The spider-woman sneered. "Well, time to get back to my job. Let me show you what might have happened if you hadn't complicated things by pulling off the teleport. In fact, most of it may yet still occur, all things considered."

A stream of visions began to pass before Noel's eyes, starting with Alex and Dana's co-sympathetic embrace, from after the explosion of the Masters' ship. As time passed, Alex and Dana drew closer and closer, then becoming lovers, being married, having children, and finally playing with those children in the streets of Tiresia.

"Aren't you forgetting something? I saved Zor!"

"Did you?"

"Stop trying to play games. I know he's alive."

"And how do you know this?"

"I... I..."

"I'll tell you how you know it. Because, instead of using your abilities to heal yourself, you've been diverting most of your strength to keep Zor Prime alive. And, you've done it at the expense of your own life, with no guarantee that your sacrifice would be enough. And, it won't, because he's my next assignment."

"Then, if you're so great, can you show what will happen if he lives?"

"Tsk, tsk.. You asked for it..."

This panorama started as before, only with Dana rejecting Alex's advances after Zor's condition improves to where he is certain to recover. Then, the Freemans return from the stars, and Alex tries to turn to Karen, who rejects him as well. Lost, without hope, he buries himself in the war against the Invid, and dies while assaulting a hive.

"Any better?" the spider asked, smiling evilly. "Now, I think I'll rub it in, by showing the happiness you could have had, if you had not chosen to try to save Zor. I think I'm beginning to like this job."

The third sequence began with both Alex and Noel comforting Dana over her loss, standing on the ridge overlooking the remains of the explosion. Over the next few weeks, Dana remains in a funk, despite efforts to bring her out of it. Finally, in one attempt, Noel's lips accidentally brush Dana's, which Dana responds to by kissing Noel, passionately. The two become lovers, then a threesome, as Alex is brought in as well. By the time Noel's family and Dana's sister return to Earth, both Dana and Noel are pregnant.

"Now do you understand what all you've sacrificed in your mad attempt to change fate?"

"NO! You're just trying to toy with me! The future, any future, is never absolute, and I've already changed history."

"Have you?"

"I have. I stabilized Rolf before I left to go after Dana and Zor, and even if I haven't made a major change, Karen has. Even in the worst case you presented, Alex was there. But, without Karen, Alex would have died in 2017. Didn't your vaunted boss tell you that?"

"Hmph."

"You had your chance, and I called your bluff."

"What bluff? You ARE dying, and there's nothing you can do to stop it." The mists began to streak with red, and darken. "It's happening right now. Not a dream, not a hoax, not an imaginary story. Any last words?"

"Alex! Help me!"

"He can't hear you, remember? You're in a coma, your heart starting to fibrillate. You're too weak to reach him with telepathy, even if he was standing beside you - which he's not."

"ALEX!"

"I told you, he can't hear you. All you've succeeded in doing is stopping your heart from the exertion."

Noel's mental construct of herself fell to its knees. "Please... Alex, Dana..."

The spider came up to Noel, lifting her chin with her finger. "Ready to go, little girl? Time to give up..." Noel cringed from the touch.

"GET AWAY FROM MY SISTER, BITCH!"

"Who?"

"Didn't your boss tell you that you had a time limit? Otherwise, you wouldn't have been needed!" Karen unleashed a blast of mental energy that slammed the spider-woman back, into the wall that was the slowly shrinking mist. "Noel, hang on; I'm here." The spider crumbled to dust, then vanished.

"For real?"

"For real. Dana and I are trying to heal you, but you've got to help us. Alex is here, too. Can't you feel him?"

"Alex?"

"Noel, come back to me, please!" Alex's voice echoed in the mists.

"Karen, I want to live!"

"Then, take my hand. There is much I need to tell you before you wake, and this is the quickest way."

Noel took her sister's hand, and the two mental forms merged into one, the surrounding fog shattering into seeming millions of fragments.

In the merged form, Karen and Noel retained their individual personalities and voices, but looked at the fragments as one. Each fragment took on the images of events from the memories of one or the other. As Noel watched, the fragments began to swirl, then sort themselves into four groups. It almost seemed at several points, that someone else was sorting the fourth group, but was somehow hiding her presence from Noel. There was something about that other personality, Noel could barely sense; something that seemed to belong there; something as close to them, as they were to each other.

"What are you doing?" Noel asked.

"Putting our pieces back together, so to speak. One grouping are your personal memories, and another is mine. The third are memories we share, or copied from others."

"And the fourth?"

"Something you need not be worried about."

Noel felt otherwise, but was prevented from asking about it by a question of Karen's own. A memory of looking down on a very young Alex hovered in front of them, the perspective being seen through the HUD of a Cyclone.

"Now, where did you get THIS?" Karen asked. "That's one of my memories, not yours, but it came from your mind."

"From Alex, maybe?"

"Not from that perspective. That's from my past, after you were created. The three people in Cyclones to my sides are Scott, Marie and your uncle Roger, Janet's husband. The old gentleman is Alex's godfather."

"Maybe it came with the locket, and the triggering of my powers. Somehow, part of your personality came with it, along with a few of your memories."

"That's probably it; otherwise, it would mean I didn't lock down your powers as much as I thought I did."

"It could be both, though. You did leave some of the powers running on autopilot to protect me, remember? As I entered training, and on the Liberty contact mission, I did things that should be impossible without using my powers. But, it would appear this memory is unique before my puberty, so it probably was sent with the locket, right?"

"True. I probably was wondering about Alex after the vision I had of you and Dana in Southern Cross armor, of what happened to him, considering his potential. When did the locket arrive, in your relationship with him?"

"After the proposal, about six months ago - depending on what month it is in the real world right now."

"Then, it made no difference in your relationship, as you'd already met and fell in love. Good." Karen tossed the memory into her pile. Noel would retain memory that the event existed, but not from Karen's point of view.

They continued talking during the sorting, Karen doing the work of the matter. A few things, Karen put of her own into the shared pile; mostly, highly technical skills copied from Dr. Lang, the Grants and others, but also her own mecha piloting abilities and reflexes. In effect, with those memories, Noel would be able to design, build and repair mecha, practice medicine, do most surgical procedures, and fly rings around anyone else in the galaxy. She also input everything known about the Invid, including information she had gotten from her scans of Rem and Tesla, years ago. For all the trouble she'd put Noel through, to cover her own existence from Zand, it was a fair trade. A few of the other memories, though, Karen held back from the shared pile; namely, the trauma of the events that occurred during the kidnapping of Karen and Dana in 2017, that led to the creation of Noel and their aunt Marie.

The two forms parted once again, and Noel hugged her sister in gratitude. "That was incredible."

"And necessary. I had to sort out our minds, to give to you what was rightfully yours, and to take back what you need not be burdened with."

"What - WHO - was that third presence I felt in our joining? She seemed familiar, somehow."

"That was my core self; my true self. It's a long story; one of those burdens that is mine alone to bear. I have to come to terms with it myself, on my own."

"How long did our merger take?"

"A couple of seconds, at most. That... ABOMINATION subjected you to that long torture to try and break your spirit. In the end, your holding out in it delayed her long enough for me to get here and save you. I have a favor to ask of you, though, for your own good."

"What is it?"

"Never bring up Alex's connection to me again. It could make him doubt whether he truly met you by chance."

"Did he?"

"When I saved him, all those years ago, I had no idea what his role would be; only that his survival would be important to my goals. So, what happened between you two, was entirely based on yourselves, not anything I have done. Don't ever doubt that. Go to him, he's been suffering for you for so long..."

"I will."

With that, Karen faded out, and Noel opened her eyes. She was surrounded by Alex, Karen and Dana, in a hospital room.

"A-Alex? Where am I?"

"Home, Noel; you've come home." He pulled her to his chest, crying.


	15. Book Four, Part Thirteen

**Robotech: The Freeman Chronicles**

**Book Four: Synchronicity**

**By: Stanley Bundy**

**Foreword:**

Once more, we enter the dark areas of Robotech History, where little is known, yet the most sacred cows of "canon" seem to be drawn from. The three official things set in this period are some of the most controversial stories, and they all contradict each other to a large extent. (The items in question are, of course, _Invid War_ [Eternity Comics], _Rolling Thunder_ [Antarctic Comics, story arc of their main Robotech series], and _Before the Invid Storm_ [McKinney novel].) Even the duration of this period causes fights and flames among the fans.

What makes this even more difficult is the shift in the _Sentinels_ start date that occurred during the scripting of that series. All dialogue evidence seems to indicate in the original Robotech series that the SDF-3 left within a couple years of the events of Episode #36. Even McKinney's novels reflect this, in the reference to Rolf's rescue of Dana from Zand as a flashback in the SC episodes' novelization (as opposed to the retcon version in Novel #19). This shift caused several major time references in dialogue (Carpenter's "15 years", references to Mars Division being "born in deep space on a Robotech ship", etc.) to no longer be feasible.

I went to such an extent researching the time references of the series while revising my original draft of this book, that I ended up converting my research into a timeline analysis (My _Palimpsests_ article, on my web page). A LOT of my original beliefs concerning the Southern Cross and Invid eras fell by the wayside during this period, while others were reinforced in ways I could have never anticipated. Having already written and posted the first two books, using the 2020s _Sentinels_ dates, I chose to keep my fanfic roughly parallel to, but diverging from, some of the novels' material to this point, with the major changes being the use of the TV episode time period settings for references back to Macross, and the events of the Southern Cross episodes. McKinney had the Southern Cross episodes starting after they'd ended in the series, having gotten the years out of sync from using an erroneous narrator comment of a 2-year travel time for the SDF-1 return to Earth, instead of the multiple character comments that put it at barely over a year. They corrected by compressing the time between episode #60 and the Invid arrival shown in the prologue of Episode #61, making some of the character references to this time a bit iffy.

Of course, there is the crackpot faction that pushed for a 2040s date for Episodes #61-85, insisting to their last breath that the "born in deep space" line MUST be kept, despite the Sentinels timeline (as finally scripted) making either the quote or the final version of the Sentinels HAVE to be apocryphal, since they cannot coexist. They are the ones that instigated most of the timeline arguments, choosing to support the mutually exclusive statements like some sort of oxymoronic mantra, supporting arguments individually, instead of trying to look at the series as a whole to determine the writers' intentions at the time of scripting. And, sadly, they ended up on Harmony Gold's payroll, and had their long-disproved ideas made official, by deliberately rewriting parts of the earlier episodes in way that are blatantly impossible to reconcile, that as rewritten should have resulted in the total destruction of the SDF-1 and all aboard prior to episode 20!

I dedicate this book of the Freeman Chronicles to all the fans that kept pressing to finish the rewites and get this part of the story done in the first few years of the 21st century.

Other Dedications include:

**Danny Richmond and Brian Gray:** Though they didn't join (or in the case of Danny, one of my original GMs for Twilight 2000, rejoin) my gaming group until the Nazgul campaign, they have become my proofreaders, and Brian helped type in parts of Books Two and Three (which I then had to edit, because he couldn't read the chicken tracks that my handwriting resembles).

**Pete Walker:** One of the 2040 advocates mentioned before, our disagreements over chronology forced me to have to go and prove my side. The arguments, and occasional agreements, we had made me look much deeper into what makes up Robotech than I ever originally intended.

The folks at **Anime Cincinnati/Sugoicon**: Thanks for Macross 7, Nadia, Ranma and more Shoujo anime than I ever thought I'd actually be interested in watching.

And lastly, my fellow **Disciples of Zor** from the old 90s fan group: thanks for making my web page a hit...

_**"A connecting principle**_

_**Linked to the invisible**_

_**Almost imperceptible**_

_**Something inexpressible**_

_**Science insusceptible**_

_**Logic so inflexible**_

_**Casually connectible**_

_**Yet nothing is invincible..."**_

_- "__**Synchronicity I**__", The Police (words by Sting)_

**Part Thirteen: The Cassandra Conundrum**

**Chapter One:**

"...We were placed in a bad situation. We could either align with one of the remaining powers, and weaken our resistance organization by virtue of it not covering more than a fraction of the planet; or, we could stay unaligned, and draw the ire of all of them, while sneaking our operatives into their boundaries without their consent. For the sake of all humanity, we had to choose the latter."

- Scott Freeman, from interview, 12/21/2041

**8 August 2030**

Zor Prime's room was quiet, save for the steady beeping of the monitors. Dana was at his bedside, having nowhere better to be (not that she would have left him, anyway). Most of their friends were on their honeymoons, and she still was uncomfortable around the members of Vulcan Division, as the _Korra'ti's_ passengers had been designated. She didn't bother to look up when the door to the room opened, so was caught by surprise by her visitor.

"How's he doing, sis?"

"Marie... I didn't expect to see you here;" Dana replied to the older clone of herself. "He's making progress, although I'll feel better when Alex and Noel return from their honeymoon at that Tisi-"

"Tisiphone; it's named for one of the mythological Greek Furies."

"If you say so; it's harder to pronounce than most Zentraedi. Anyway, the combination of skin grafts with Karen's powers seems to be working; but I'd feel a lot better with Alex here supervising."

"And what are Karen and I? Candy-stripers?"

"No offense, but Alex DID earn his medical degree, instead of telepathically ripping the knowledge off from Jean and Dr. Lang, like Karen did for the two of you. Besides, it's hard getting used to having you here, and as a LOT more than just a friend or former babysitter. You're ME, genetically, yet you've seen and done so much more. You've traveled the galaxy, had children... Hell, from what I've heard, you brought the dead back to life, when you cloned Minmei's cousin after Edwards killed him. How can I even begin to live up to your accomplishments - or Noel to Karen, for that matter?"

"You already have, both you and Noel. In saving what you did of humanity, both local and the clones, you have earned your own spot in history. Already, I've heard talk of you being put up for humanitarian honors - no mean feat for actions done in time of war."

"That's not what I mean..."

"I know. Mom and Dad love you very much, as least as much as Aurora and me; probably more. Despite my appearing to be the older of us, you are their first born, after all. A day didn't go by when they wouldn't think of you, and how far away you were. In fact, we should have our FTL communications system up and running tomorrow, and we'll be able to communicate directly to Tyrol. From there, we can get a relay to Haydon IV, as soon as Scott and Rolf get through briefing Rick and Lisa on the current situation."

"Really?"

"Really. You won't believe your eyes when you actually see Aurora. She's only a couple years old, but, she looks much older. I just wish she was as mature in interacting with people as she seemed to be in your vision. That telepathic message to the contrary, she's almost autistic when put into a social situation. If she doesn't improve-"

Zor stirred, moaning, as the enforced coma he'd been put under because of his burns was no longer being supported by drugs, after Karen had reinforced the bonding of the skin grafts to his flesh, through her healing talents.

"Uhhh... Dana?"

"Zor, you're awake!"

"Dana... where am I? How did I get here? Why- Why are there two of you?" This last seeming impossibility went far in clearing the cobwebs from his mind, as he tried to comprehend it.

"Noel grabbed you with my hovertank and teleported both of you out of the ship as it blew up. You've been kept in an artificial coma ever since, to keep you from moving and possibly worsening your injuries. As for where you are, you're in the ruins of Brasilia Base, in the Southlands. And, the reason there are of two of me is that someone made an adult clone of me 13 years ago. Zor, this is Marie Freeman, my clone-sister, and Noel's aunt by marriage."

"Pleased to meet you, Zor. Now that you're back with us, you can join in with the call tomorrow to Haydon IV and Tyrol, if you feel up to it. I know both Cabell and Rem, would love to talk with you."

"I remember Cabell, but who is this Rem?"

"Cabell made another Zor-clone behind the Masters' backs, and raised him from an infant as if he were his own son. It was his hope that Rem would someday finish the original Zor's plan of returning the flower to Optera. When I left Tyrol, plans were already underway for such a mission, but the Invid Regis is nowhere to be found, and it has us worried that she might be heading here."

Zor tried to sit up, but could barely move himself.

"What is wrong with me?"

"Relax, Zor," Dana said, reaching over and adjusting his powered bed to sit him up. "You were burned horribly, and have been immobile for months. Your muscles have atrophied from disuse. Tomorrow, we'll start on your physical therapy to get you rehabilitated. You really need to thank Karen and Noel, though. Between them, they were able to use their mental abilities to stimulate your regeneration, and you will only need minor plastic surgery to return your looks to what they were. You won't even have scars from the skin grafts, so in a few months, you should be as good as new."

"Marie?"

"Yes?"

"You have been to Tyrol with the REF, right?"

"Yes, of course. Why?"

"Can you help me get brought up to date on what has happened beyond Earth? Most of my memories - well, my original's memories - were brought back by Dana, combined with the probes done to me in my last period of captivity with the Masters. I have a lot of catching up to do."

"Sure. I'll even call in some help, so I won't bore you to death. Where do you want me to begin?"

"Right after my original's death, if you can."

"No problem; though, Karen will be able to this better than I can. I'll get you started, then she can take over when she's free. I've got two baby girls to take care of."

"That will be fine."

"Okay... After Dolza and Breetai returned your body to Tyrol, Breetai was given command of a small fleet, and sent after the SDF-1..."

**22 August 2030**

"We will aid you, Colonel Freeman, but only under one condition. You must not give any aid to the EBSIS or the Republic of Patagonia."

"Are you out of your mind?" Scott screamed at the UEG-Scandinavia representative on the viewscreen. "The ONLY way Earth will have a chance against the Invid is a truly unified defense! I used to be one of the most vocal anti-Soviet members of the RDF; for that matter, I still am. But we don't have a PRAYER of victory without them. There's an old saying: 'War makes strange bedfellows'. It's one of the most constant truths of history; look at the Allied powers of the Second World War, or the Western Alliance of the Third, or even the Unification and Anti-Unification alliances that emerged after the SDF-1 arrived!

"Lastly, I would remind you of a quote I've already used once in this war, to the alien races that allied with us at Tyrol against the Invid then. During the writing of the American Declaration of Independence, Franklin told the other delegates that 'We must hang together, or we will all hang separately.' If we don't ALL stand together, we are doomed to fail before we even start. It's time to choose the lesser of two evils. I've seen how the Invid operate - and I don't want to see it here."

"I'm sorry, Colonel, but that is our final offer. Please call us when you change your mind." With that, the councilman shut off his end abruptly.

"That pompous Son of a Bitch!" Scott screamed with frustration, picking up his flight helmet, and slinging it to the floor with such force that it hit the 10-meter-high ceiling of the TIC on the bounce.

"Calm down, Scott," Rolf said, putting his hand on Scott's shoulder. "Lord knows, I had my share of difficulties with the Western Hemisphere contingent, when they were still alive. But I was hoping that your first-hand report of the Invid atrocities could make them hear what they wouldn't even attempt to hear from me."

"It wouldn't matter, anyway. Of the five biggest governments, only the smallest two agreed to our terms. Quebec and Japan won't be enough; we needed one of the other three to agree without limitations against the others, to force the other two to come to the table without similar demands."

"So, you've already tried the Patagonians and the EBSIS?"

"I had Karen call them this morning. If anything, they were less polite than Scandinavia. Some 'United Earth'! We probably couldn't get them to agree on a latrine site during a dysentery epidemic!"

"Well, we'll have to try to make do without them, even if it means going behind their backs. I've put out a call for all surviving ASC personnel to converge on Brasilia and Africa bases, along with any Tyrolean prisoners they may have taken. Hopefully, there will be enough to have the beginnings of a resistance movement, should the governments not come around in time."

"How many of your group is going to sign up?"

"My group? Oh, you mean the Fifteenth and the people they picked up along the way. The ATAC unit itself is split about evenly, though I think that will change once they get back from the one month leave we gave them for their honeymoons, as a reward for their heroics. Bowie has already told me he wishes to take his wife's people back to Tyrol, and the current plan is to turn Wolfe's ship over to them, once Jon gets his forces situated planetside. Dennis and Nova Brown will also be going, as will Nichols. I don't think Louis trusts anyone other than himself to run his prototype drive modifications, and after the stunt the research department pulled with that targeting system he developed, I hardly blame him."

"Who's staying for sure?"

"Dana and Zor Prime are at the top of the list. Ever since Zor began talking with his old mentor and his brother, two weeks ago, he's been becoming more and more dedicated to the protection of Earth. And wherever he goes, Dana will follow. Part of his reasoning is that he's hoping the first large crop of flowers on Optera might come in before the Invid arrival, though latest estimates put a crop that size not occurring for another two to three years. If it does, he thinks he can talk the Regis into leaving for home peacefully."

"Not much chance of that, if she's anything like her late husband."

"Also signed up are Alex and Noel, as well as the Tensens. They, combined with Dana and Zor, have such a unique set of skills that I am going have them retrained to function as a special unit for your operations planetside, both in the air and on the ground."

"I can deal with that - from the reports I've seen of their activities during the war here, they did quite a lot of special ops on their own. That kind of creativity needs to be harnessed officially. Any more confirmed signees?"

"The Phillips. Both have command and flight experience, and Sean's straightened up his act considerably since he fell for Marie. They should fit into your plans for a reformed air squadron for your personal combat wing. The question is, will you assign them as commanders of separate squads, or together as a Legios team?"

"Probably the latter. In my experience, married couples tended to work better working as wingmates, at least while their relationship is solid. It will probably be a standing order for couples both serving in the same area of expertise to serve together that way. I always hated it when something we were doing on the Sentinels mission separated myself from Marie, and being split sure didn't help Vince and Jean's nerves, or Rick and Lisa's."

"Point noted. As for the rest, Dana's former sergeant, Dante, will probably stay, out of loyalty to Dana, if nothing else. The medics Alex picked up, that assisted him in treating me, will probably go with Bowie. One of them married one of Musica's sisters, and the ship will need a medical staff to handle minor emergencies on the return trip to Tyrol, since Jon's likely to keep the majority of his medical personnel for his base of operations."

The discussion was interrupted by a communications tech, bringing a printout to Rolf.

"What is it?"

"It looks like those who are still debating their choices will have to make up their minds soon. The Factory Satellite's long range sensors report picking up Wolfe's ship defolding in the outer system. Depending on how many stops he makes on the way in, he could be here within three days, but it will probably be closer to ten, if he follows the itinerary filed at his departure."

"I'd better tell Nichols, then." Scott stepped over to an intra-base console, and keyed up the lab Louie was working in.

"Louie, put down what you're doing and answer the com. It's Colonel Freeman."

"I'm here, sir. What is it?"

"Operation Long Distance Voyager is now in effect. Wolfe's arrival time is three to twelve days. Will you be ready?"

"No sweat, sir. But will Colonel Wolfe agree to it?"

"He won't have much choice but to agree to it. After all, General Emerson outranks him."

"That's true, sir."

"Carry on, then. Getting your fold technology to Tyrol could shorten, if not prevent, the next potential conflict."

"I'll do my best, sir."

**Chapter Two:**

"Jon (Wolfe) seemed to take the news about Minmei, and the return of Kyle into her life well. At least, it seemed he did, until he found out that his wife, an outspoken critic of Leonard and Moran, had disappeared during the early days of the war with the Masters, and that his son was part of an ASC unit last heard from when they were investigating strange activity in the most dense part of the Zone, the week before the war's end. We have no idea if he ever found out their fates before his own demise at the hands of the Invid." - Marie Sterling Freeman, from interview, 12/21/2041

**23 August 2030**

"Venus Attack Group, this is RDF Solar System Chief of Staff Emerson, calling from Brasilia Base. I need to speak to Colonel Wolfe."

"Wolfe, here. Rolf, how did you know I was commanding this force?"

"A little bird told him," Scott chimed in, finally stepping into the viewing area of the communications center.

"Freeman. How did you beat me here?"

"It's a long story, other than the Korra'ti was up to its old tricks again. We'll discuss it over dinner in Nueva Janeiro, when you get through with all your business stops at Io, Mars and Luna. By the way, brace yourself - you need to adjust your chronometers accordingly. The current time is 0827 Zulu, 23 August 2030. That's right, two-zero-three-zero."

"Twenty-thirty? How?"

"Computational error in the equations concerning fold equations. The error wasn't discovered until after you left, or at least its magnitude wasn't. The big clue that something was wrong, was that the Korra'ti attempted an emergency fold to escape the Masters' arrival in 2029, and arrived in the Tyrol Local Group in what the REF thought was 2024. Turns out the ship did manage to jump backward in time, but only a few months, not 5 years. It also turns out that the Masters had been jamming the communications lines between Earth and Tyrol at least since their advance scouts arrived in the solar system in 2027, about the time we left Garuda." Scott chose not to mention that there had been people interfering with communications even earlier, on this end.

"So, communications have been restored with REF command. What's the news? We beat the Invid yet?"

"Yes and no. Both the Regent and Edwards are dead. It happened in two battles on Optera, the year after you left. However, the Regis is still at large, with her half of the Invid race, and all the evidence points to her coming here."

"How come?"

"Well, when the Southern Cross and Tyrolean forces wiped each other and Monument City out, the Masters' ship blew up over the ruins of Macross. What the Masters were looking for, what all the Invid were looking for, was the last storehouse of Flower of Life seeds, which Zor had hidden away. As we discovered from talking with Cabell and Rem, Zor had hidden that super-matrix aboard the SDF-1. The explosion spread the seeds and spores contained in that matrix to the winds, so now nearly every untilled field in North America is knee-deep in Invid flowers, as are many areas of the rest of the planet."

"My God."

"With the capture of Optera, the Invid have no place else to go but here. You're just in time to help us set up an underground resistance network, in case the Regis doesn't give us a chance to talk peace. We figure, if they do invade, our only chance is to dig in, use hit-and-run tactics when forced to fight, and wait for the REF to return in force, as Earth can't provide a unified defense."

"Is the Southern Cross completely gone?"

"Just about. Rolf - this is supposed to be your debriefing, you tell him."

"The problems with the Southern Cross' resistance started with the launch of the SDF-3. Just prior to departure, Adams, probably under the instruction of the Edwards clone you had with you on the REF mission, got Lang to agree to additional armaments for the mission. What wasn't discovered until after the departure, was that the 'additional' weapons were ALL the Alphas built for the Southern Cross Army Corps, but hadn't yet been delivered, half the other Veritechs - both air and ground, and most of the munitions. While the end effect was, ironically, the move probably saved the REF mission from destruction, it crippled the RDF left behind. Anatole was furious; he only mentioned the RDF when necessary for morale purposes, and renamed the all the RDF forces under him as the Armies of the Southern Cross, to downplay the connection to the military he rightfully felt had betrayed him."

"Then?"

"We rebuilt as best we could. Anatole resented the REF so much for what happened, that he even went so far as to order that new designs be made that had no connection to the RDF. His former associate Petrie didn't help by sabotaging the last vestiges of the Southern Cross Alpha development program. The initial contact with the Masters in '27 was through a group of spies the Masters planted by capturing, cloning and replacing several dozen high-placed members of the Far East Command, who compromised half of the mecha development programs of the time. Because of this, our most promising conventional space fighter designs, a hybrid lift Veritech helicopter design, and several cycle-based mecha designs were all scrapped for security reasons. The programs were just finishing beta testing at that point, and the loss of the tech personnel, the majority of the technical information, and the probability that the Masters then knew more about the designs than we did, made them too risky to even think about depending on for our defense."

"Ow. And I thought T.R. feeding the Regent the Sentinels' location and itinerary was bad. How long did you have to prepare for the actual war?"

"About two years. Our space installations were attacked in a manner similar to Pearl Harbor, during the ceremonies marking the 15th anniversary of the destruction of New Macross and the SDF-1, which also happened to be graduation day for the Robotech Academy. On looking back, I don't think it was a coincidence, the way others thought at the time. It was perfectly timed to have most of the command staff away from headquarters for ceremonial purposes, and readiness to be down for the same reason. It probably never crossed Anatole and Wyatt's minds that the sensitive information the Masters stole included our rough plans for the anniversary celebration. The Masters used the next few months slipping into the inner solar system, while we waited for planetary attacks that didn't come. It wasn't until the middle of the year that they actually attacked Earth from space.

"The last year has been a charnel house of destruction, both sides depleting each others' resources until the Masters finally launched a desperation attack to try to decapitate our defenses, once it became clear that the Invid had discovered their location. They destroyed Monument, most of the North American Corps, and most of the space fleet. I was captured when my flagship was destroyed, after being bodily carried to safety by two loyal squadron commanders, and nearly died on the Masters' command ship. Of all things, a group of hovertankers commanded by Dana Sterling had managed to turn two key Tyrolean personnel to our side, and it was through their efforts that I was rescued, and the Masters defeated on the verge of their total victory. That was four months ago."

"And the rest of the Earth forces?"

"The Southern Cross command of the Americas is a lost cause. No ASC base operating mecha escaped the notice of the Masters in that final conflict, anywhere from Brasilia, north to the Arctic Circle. A lot of the naval forces have been operating autonomously since, still debating whether to put themselves at my disposal, remain autonomous until the REF returns, or pledge allegiance to one of the other surviving UEG fragments. Mexico underwent a coup d'etat, and is currently under the command of a CDU Colonel that was under investigation for corruption at the time of the final battle.

"Elsewhere, Japan and Scandinavia still claim UEG affiliation, but are effectively two separate nations, and both refuse to accept me as being legitimate, insisting I'm an imposter. I'm still recognized by all of our remaining space forces, what little of them survived. Only about ten percent of our forces in the last space battle made it to the moon bases, and it took emergency supply runs from Mars to keep the survivors there from dying from starvation and lack of medical supplies. Mars and Io have their own military governors, and they have been on war production for the entire war, just unable to ship the munitions to Earth. Same goes for Little Luna, which Leonard sent out to orbit the planetoid Chiron, between Jupiter and Saturn, after the incident in 2027.

"The Patagonians are much more sophisticated then they were when you tanking around Zone Z, and are more independent now than ever, having effectively declared a "Monroe Doctrine" policy for the Americas in the wake of the war, in conjunction with Quebec and York, telling the Eurasian powers that the Western Hemisphere was off-limits to power grabs. Quebec is still independent as ever, though the only reasons they didn't join us in the fight with the Masters were that Leonard wouldn't accept their offer initially, and by the time he was willing to, York was threatening Quebec's borders. York is still the hotbed of bigotry it was when you left, only with eyes toward conquering New Detroit and Manhattan, now that the ASC is dead. Quebec's effectively stepped in as 'white knight' for both, but there's no telling how this will play out. Ironically, they both believe in the Invid threat, and are willing to put aside their differences - once the Invid actually show. Till then, it's saber-rattling and stare-down contests as usual."

"What about the biggest independent? Surely the Neo-Soviets are still around?"

"And as contrary as ever. They refused to help in the last war, and refuse to believe us when we try to warn them of the new danger. They think we're fabricating the threat to seize power."

"For the love of heaven. Why would anyone want to make up something like this?"

"They point out that Russo, Hayes and others from multiple governments were planning such a fake invasion in 1999, to stop the Global War and unite the world, when the real thing showed up in the middle of their implementation of the project, and stood the world on its ear. One of their 'analysts' insists that the footage we provided of the Invid were computer-generated fakes, when some of it was from Scott, Max and Rick's own gun cameras. Hell, they claimed that Rick even flying in combat was a sign of fakery, as no sane flag officer would put himself back into a cockpit and abandon his command like Rick did to join the Sentinels Liberation campaign, especially not the military commander of the entire task force."

"I hate to say it, but while they're wrong, they do have a legitimate point. By the way, Scott; congratulations. I just noticed your promotion."

"Rick thought it would be better if we functioned as equals. After you left, and the Korra'ti arrived, we put together an additional ad hoc return division for it, called Vulcan after the planetoid people kept claiming they saw in the 1800s inside the orbit of Mercury. They were hoping we would beat Carpenter's Mercury fleet back, but we only beat you back by a month."

"You got Skull with you?"

"Well, actually, Skull and the rest of the other wings were disbanded after you left, as part of a major realignment of forces - not to mention Rick and the Sterlings completely leaving active flying. Starting with Mars Attack Group, each has an aerospace division made up of multiple squadrons, with no official names, just numbers identifying their squadron, and the group name. The only "name" Wings and Squadrons are those assigned to planetary defense, and forces small enough to only have one set, like my own. My Highlander Wing is named for my old Squadron in Skull, and is half former Skull members, with the rest being recruits from the group that rescued Rolf from the Masters."

"I wouldn't mind meeting some of those hovertankers. Boarding a spaceship with tanks is something even I'm not sure I'd want to attempt."

"I can arrange that. See you in about two weeks."

**5 September 2030**

The calm of the Brazilian morning was broken by the arrival of a half-kilometer-long superdimensional fortress over the remains of Brasilia Base. It set down on the broken remains of the runways destroyed in the base's destruction, on the far side of the cannon shaft from the runways still in use. Almost immediately on landing, the Wolfe Pack and its support forces began deploying, while ground crews and the ship's own began to prepare and modify it for the trip back, using Louie's new fold equations.

Wolfe himself met with Rolf, Scott and the others, meeting Dana for the first time since the wedding, and swapping tanker stories with her and many of the other survivors of the 15th ATAC, before the group of command personnel and Tyrolean VIPs headed for Nueva Janeiro for dinner and informal conversation about the work ahead of them.

"And we're all that stands between Earth and at least a couple million Invid?" Jon asked, between bites of the first real steak he'd had in years. "It's suicide!"

"It's not like we have any other option," Dana countered.

"I guess not. Scott, that idea you mentioned about laying low during the actual invasion is beginning to sound better and better. You and I have already seen that the more a race stands up in the initial invasion, the more of it is destroyed by the occupying Invid. The Karbarrans had their children seized for their resistance; the Praxians lost their world. But the Garudans, they resisted so passively that it was an utter shock for the Invid when their slaves suddenly turned on them, that even farm implements proved effective against the unwary Invid. I mean, there were several dozen of their mechs taken down by wave attack by Garudans with pruners, loincloths, and not much more, though the kill ratio was dozens to one. The hard thing will be getting others to wait for the right moment, given how territorial man is, by nature. Some will never fight, others will see our holding back as cowardice, not wisdom."

"All we can do is tell them the truth, and hope they'll listen before it's too late," Scott replied.

"I've already got a location picked for my group to relocate to; it's a crater town not far from Cavern City, in Venezuela. It's fairly isolated, partially underground, and has a self-sufficient infrastructure. Plus, a number of my men have family there, from the Malcontent wars."

"You sure you don't want to take over Brasilia when I move Vulcan to Africa?"

"Brasilia will be fine as a training center for the resistance, but my men need something a bit more... urban. We did our time in the jungle fifteen years ago."

"I understand," Rolf nodded, as he spoke. "I notice you've requested a week off while your XO sets up the new base. Why?"

"Multiple things, really. First of all, I need to go around to the families of those who didn't make it back to tell them what happened; Geena Bartley in particular." Geena's husband Ron had made it through most of the war, only to fall on what should have been friendly ground, fighting the Inorganics unleashed into the streets of Tiresia by the Edwards clone.

"Courtesy calls aside, you're going to try to find Catherine, aren't you?" Scott ascertained. He had worked with the Wolfe Pack in the days of turmoil that had led up to the mysterious disappearance of the Scavenger clan of Malcontents in 2018, and remembered Ron and Geena; Ron was almost like a brother to Jon, while Geena was one of the few friends Catherine had regular contact with outside the Cavern City government, as Catherine often left Johnny with Geena to play with the Bartleys' daughter.

"Yes. Minmei told me to do it, as she was being carried off by the Edwards clone. I know it was T.R. making her say it, trying to twist the knife in my gut that much more, but the truth is I need to face the sins of my past. I'm a much different man now, than I was when I abandoned Catherine and Johnny for my career."

"Good luck... A lot can happen in ten years."

"I may have only experienced three of them, but they've weighed like fifty on my soul. I'm finally ready to atone for my mistakes."

"Are you sure you don't want to come along with us?" Jack Carlson asked Alex and Noel, who'd come to see their friends off on their trip to Tyrol.

"We're staying. Noel's family is here, now, and we'll stand beside them in the Earth's defense."

"I have no family left, Alex; besides Octavia, that is. Prior to the last battle, my only family left was my brother, who died at Monument City Hospital during the attack."

"D'oh... I remember now... I worked with him a couple times, and we talked a little about him, while I was working, trying to save Noel. Guess I was a bit distracted at the time."

"That, you were."

"Take care, and keep your brother-in-law out of trouble. Dana won't be there to cover for him."

"I'll try, Alex, but that may be harder than you think. The thought-sharing triumvirates have with each other is starting to get to Allegra."

"In what way?"

"You've been too busy to notice, but it seems that wherever Bowie and Musica go, so does Allegra. She seems to want to be as much a part of their relationship as her sister, not being used to independence. And neither Bowie nor Musica are putting up much of a fight."

"Bowie, a polygamist? I would have never thought it."

"Well, it isn't our place to judge - much; after all, morality is a personal thing, and if you REALLY wanted to get technical, you're married to a 13-year-old -"

"Hey - don't go there!"

"You know I'm just kidding with you... But, how do you think Bowie's parents will react to it - let alone the rest of the REF?"

"I don't know, but I don't want to be involved with that decision. There are certain things to take into account that were never considered possible when the term 'individual' was defined."

"Personally, I'm just glad that her brush with death brought out a lot of Octavia's individuality. I don't think I could handle wife-swapping."

"Always the kidder, Jack. I understand what you're talking about, though. Good luck, man."

"It should be me wishing you luck. I'm leaving the war zone, and you're staying behind, waiting for the next war to start."

"We'll keep our heads down; don't worry."

"Glad to hear it, 'grandson'."

"Grandson? Real funny, Jack; now get on that spaceship before I take that comment seriously and hit you up for a loan."

"Aye-aye, sir," Jack said, clicking his heels in a mock salute, then running over to his wife, who was impatiently tapping her fingers on the bulkhead in a musical rhythm.

"One of these days, Noel, I'm gonna forget myself and kill one of those goofballs."

"I know you better than that. Let's go back to our place, now that they've boarded. I hate long good-byes, and besides, we start retraining tomorrow. We have better ways of spending our afternoon."

"I like your thinking," Alex replied, kissing his wife. "Are we going to walk, or take a short cut?"

She answered him by grabbing him around his waist and teleporting them back to quarters.

**Chapter Three:**

"When you really think about it, Tisiphone existed far longer than its creators could have envisioned; longer than even the most optimistic probably would have even dared suggest. Certainly, none of the fission reactors built prior to the recovery of Reflex fusion power systems on the SDF-1 in 1999 could have been expected to last 120 years in stand-by mode, let alone the twelve thousand years that Tisiphone's lasted - and it was just the backup system. All the evidence indicated that the society that built the facility were only a few decades advanced beyond the level of technology we had prior to the arrival of the SDF-1, but we could have never have made such a facility. It's a testament to their manufacturing quality and insistence on multiple levels of redundancy that the Freemans were able to restore power to the command center by throwing a few switches. I just wish we'd had the plans and equipment needed to maintain the equipment; as it was, we were barely able to translate and label the controls, and the original tenants took the maintenance equipment with them when they left Earth."

- Roy Fokker, Reflections on Two Lives

**29 September 2030**

"How goes the recruiting, Cuz?" Scott called into the commander's room of the MTA-Titan battlewagon that was parked next to the Brasilia Base crater.

"Not good," Lynn replied. "You wouldn't believe the scum that's tried to join lately."

"It can't be that bad."

"It's worse than you think. An entire gang of bikers heard about the Cyclones, and tried to pass themselves off as the home guard of Cavern City to get them. Oh, they are the biggest force in the city, all right; they've killed or run off any who would stand up to them, and cowed the rest into obeying their every whim. If our resources weren't so limited, I'd consider cleaning up that town. But, it would be too easy for them to slip through the cracks, and the survivors come back as strong as ever."

"What did you tell them?"

"I told them that if they ever came within our borders again, or attack any of our trainees, I'd take this pint-sized GMU and blast them."

"Good; make that an official order. The last thing we need are human bandits with mecha. Damn; Edwards would have felt right at home here. How many legitimate recruits do we have, so far?"

"Ninety-six candidates have passed the first stage so far. The second stage is an interview with Karen, who'll do a telepathic probe to weed out the unstable and the fakes."

"Got a better breakdown of them?"

"Let's see..." Lynn pulled a folder from her desk. "Three dozen Civil Defense troops from the Far East Sector, including a squad of Manhattan-based CDFC caught in New Tokyo by the outbreak of the war on a training exercise, and pressed into regular Air Force service there for the duration. The Manhattan bunch will be going home for the first time in two years, once their training is done. They're all being trained as multi-use special forces, with espionage and intelligence cross-training; the official name for the MOS type is 'military specialist'."

"I've always thought that was a corny term. Where did it come from?"

"The UEDC, when charged by the UN World Constitutional Convention to create a world defense force, needed a generic term to downplay the old inter-service and inter-national rivalries between the dozens of special operations forces being combined under their command. 'Military Specialist' was about the only term not taken by an existing unit somewhere on the planet."

"I guess that makes sense - confusing at first, but necessary."

"On the down side, it also allowed them to officially disband units that were notorious for their actions in the Global War, if not guilty of war crimes, and reassign the personnel - which is how our old friend T.R. got his actions in the war buried under red tape."

"We'll have to be a bit more selective in our choices, then - but I guess that's what Karen's part in all this is."

"Yeah. I've told her not to tell me what she does to 'wash out' the true scum she might uncover in her probes. 'Don't ask, don't tell', and all that..."

"What about the other sixty candidates?"

"Six of the Monument survivors are being trained like the first group; Dana, Zor, Alex, Noel, and two more - an enlisted member of their squad and his GMP girlfriend. However, their training will be a bit more oriented toward mecha training than the others, and your wife's already requested that they be assigned to your personal squadron."

"Has she, now? What about the others?"

"Fifteen NCOs from Quebec are receiving specialized Cyclone training geared toward their functioning as the Cyclone training cadre for their military. Next class will include their York and Manhattan equivalents. We wanted to do the all three at once, but it wasn't politically viable. At best, we'll only be able to ship them the Cyclones at the same time in December, to keep them from using them against each other. Twenty-eight others, the remaining RDF Reserve and ASC Veritech personnel, are being given the standard ABC training."

"ABC?"

"Alpha-Beta-Cyclone. There are also eleven locals receiving various levels of training. Of these, ten are technicians from the motor pool of Brasilia's Tactical Division. They had been deployed on the jungle frontier, in case the surviving Zentraedi tried to aid the Masters, and were lagging behind their combatants when the latter were called back to Brasilia in the last week of the war. Their lateness saved their lives. We'll be bringing their training up to basic Bio-Maintenance Engineer training, though we'll have to cut out the Destroid classes, and skimp on the training for Veritechs other than the Alpha and Cyclones. In exchange, we'll be giving them basic flight and Cyclone operation training."

"Aren't techs usually not allowed such training?"

"Well, our trainees are going to be an exception, as they'll be operating in the field without the usual heavy lift equipment, and they'll be passing Karen's screening as well."

"And the last?"

"She was one of the leaders of the last resistance to the bikers I mentioned earlier. She was ambushed by them, and beaten pretty badly. Evidently, they feared reprisal from her friends, because they DIDN'T rape her. If they had, Karen and I would have never left them leave alive."

"Are you sure she's not just out for revenge?"

"Karen's positive, and that's good enough for me. The girl thinks she was handed over as a sacrificial victim by her own gang, but Karen and I think otherwise. Unfortunately, she won't listen to us about that. Karen's training her personally, to be the prototype for a civilian freedom fighter program we plan to implement in January, if the Invid let us have that long."

"What type of recruits are you currently looking for?"

"Well, we'd like to train a class of three hundred instructor trainees by the end of the year. So, we're looking for teachers with military experience, and retired drill instructors, regardless of age or disability. Advertise on the streets, if you have to; we need these people."

"I'll see what we can scrape up. How's Todd?"

"Obnoxious, as always. Falco's threatening to toss him down the shaft, without benefit of parachute, if he doesn't shape up. What's the word from Tisiphone?"

"They've been operating on a war footing since the last week of the Masters conflict. Based on what the Tyrolean survivors told us, the Invid should arrive some time in the next nine months. In fact, the dates of the most pessimistic projections, that of the Masters themselves, have already passed. Roy compared the atmosphere in the sensor room as being like a morgue waiting for a bus to be pulled out of a river."

"That's an image I didn't need in my mind. I just hope that they wait until after our move to Africa. This location just isn't defensible in the long term."

"I know. You should see the underground complex we'll be moving to - the runways were part of the local highway system prior to the war, and only a fraction of the base is on the surface, with acres of green space between the different access points to the complex. It's been abandoned since the early days of the war, when the Masters hit it, based on the info they got in '27 from their advance agents."

"Colonel!" a tech yelled, running into the office, out of breath. "Tisiphone Base needs to speak to you! It's an emergency!"

"Is it the Invid?"

"No; General Fokker said something about the base's systems, then their primary transmitter went out. Their backup transmission is garbled, but they manage to get through well enough to suggest you fly closer to make a better connection, if not actually fly on in."

"Tell them I'll be right there."

As Scott's Alpha approached Tisiphone, he noticed that all the concealed hangars were open, and the base was in the process of evacuation. Most of the evacuees were heading for the Zentraedi hulk that, over a decade earlier, had inadvertently caused the discovery of the complex by shooting him down over it.

Scott had ordered an examination of the derelict on its return, to see if it held anything usable, only to find that Roy had instigated repairs on the ship a decade earlier, trading with Zentraedi in the jungle, black marketeers, and anyone else with usable salvage and tight lips for the parts. All the repair and micronian conversion work was complete, except for the main engines. The engines needed parts unavailable on Earth, having been reused to power most of the ASC fleet whenever they were recovered, and would have been too big to smuggle to a secret facility, anyway. The Factory Satellite had been working on scratch-building the units, but they wouldn't be finished until next week.

"Colonel Freeman to Tisiphone? Can anyone read me?"

Scott, this is Roy. Sorry about the scare; I'm on the Kramer. Come aboard, and I'll fill you in on the situation."

"Okay, what's up?"

"We had to shut down the fusion reactor, after it developed fuel feed problems. So, we shifted power generation over to the backup fission reactor, while our techs took advantage of the down time to actually get into the fusion reactor, study it, and try to correct the malfunction. Well, we had a power spike during the changeover, that knocked the control computer offline; by the time we got it back up, its backups were failing."

"Don't tell me - you've had a meltdown."

"It's not that bad, thank God. By the time we got the situation back under control, we had a coolant line rupture. We shut down the fission reactor, but the power core section of the base has widespread contamination, and there was leakage into the operational and residential areas. We can decontaminate the living areas by the end of the month, but the power core won't be safe enough to decontaminate for about a decade."

"You know that ship will be a sitting duck, if the Invid arrive before you get the engines fixed."

"Not entirely. We've got the power plant online, and the maneuver drive is operational. We should be able to fly our personnel and gear over to Fortress Gloval, and the location is much better suited in terms of weather for the final repairs. Once the ship is operational, it will need to go back into space, and we can shuffle the personnel between the ship and Gloval to get the best mix for each. Besides, Wolfe should be able to handle his end of the continent without us."

"When are you lifting off?"

"We can be operational in nine hours, but it will take longer than that to load up all the equipment we're taking."

"What are you taking? The last I heard, you hadn't translated a tenth of the databases here, even with Zentraedi help."

"We managed to develop an interface for the computer systems, and we've dumped complete copies of the data over to formats we can use, and have already transmitted a copy to the Factory Satellite, and they're supposed to pass a copy on to Cabell. Since the language is closer to his own than Zentraedi, he might be able to make more sense of it. A few pieces of hardware are going to be brought for study, but mostly, we're loading our supplies and personal effects, as they clear decontamination."

"How are Claudia and Ricky?"

"Claudia's feeling deja vu, as it reminds her of the loss of Macross Island. But, she's been through this before. Ricky's too young to notice; he thinks it's all a game."

"Well, I'll head on back, and report to Rolf what you've got planned, and set up the codes for you to link this fossil into the satellite net."

Scott stood up, saluted Roy, then went back to his Alpha, parked in an airlock/hangar off the bridge. He had seen right through Roy's facade; Roy was putting up a good act, but the strain of losing his home of the last twelve years shown through. Scott could empathize, as he had seen many of his plans destroyed in the last two decades, as well. But, life goes on, and Roy could handle it; Scott was certain. Taking one last look at the last remnant of Aztlan, Scott took off from the ship, then turned eastward into the coming night.

**Chapter Four:**

"Africa Base became our first true home after the return to Earth; a major step up from the porta-domes and dropship bunkers we had at Brasilia. I had taken a bit of work to restore the base, which had taken a pounding from a diversionary attack early in the war with the Robotech Masters, and had been abandoned shortly afterward as more and more troops were pulled from across the globe to replace the heavy casualties from Monument's command. Africa was the continent least touched by the two previous wars, both in damage and the technological advancements that accompanied the recovery of the SDF-1. For someone born and raised in the west, it was like stepping through a time portal to the American 1970s." - Scott Freeman, Memories of the Madness

**2 October 2030**

The Kramer did a flyby of Brasilia on its flight east, as the Brasilia contingent itself began preparations for the move to Africa. The training facility's current staff would remain behind, until the local staff was trained and in place, but they would (with luck) rejoin the rest of Vulcan Division in December, to begin the training of the African freedom fighter network.

While the others prepared for the move, Karen found herself moving into her old quarters in the residential levels at the bottom of the cannon shaft, which had finally been cleared for reoccupation. Lynn was moving the combat training center there as well, as it would be safer than remaining topside in tents and prefabricated housing. Until the elevator was fixed, the group's Veritechs and Karen's powers were the only means of travel to the surface, with Karen taking on the duty of rotating the twelve-hour watch shifts in the Titan, as well as most large group transfers up and down the shaft.

The group of repair technicians stayed topside, half their day training, the other working their way down the barrel installing the new elevator track, and that work would be done, if it kept to schedule, no later than the 20th. For that, Karen was thankful, as she was using slightly more of her powers' energy reserves than she could recover each day, and would probably be limited to transporting herself and her single student before that date.

Said student, meanwhile, was busy in the firing range simulator, qualifying on the RL-6 multi-shot rocket launcher standard to the lightest Cyclone design. While the girl had taken pains to not give her name, Karen knew who she was, even before the mental scan part of the admittance procedure (which Karen had done while the candidates were sleeping). The poor girl had been run out of her home town, before Jon ever had the chance to tell her family about her father's death. But, he'd been dead to her, in her heart, after the communications between Earth and Tyrol broke down. Telling her the exact nature of his real death, only two or so years ago (damn time jumps!) would only serve to open up old wounds, on top of all the fresh ones she wouldn't let heal.

Nor would it help, if Karen let the girl's surviving uncle and his wife know of her presence here, or her of their presence in Vulcan. All that would result would be the uncle throwing away his career a second time (if he survived 10-1 odds, assuming his wife went with him), charging in to take out the people who had hurt his niece. The gang who attacked her did deserve it, but unfortunately were now the defacto civilian rulers of the town, and therefore off-limits. Had they been former ASC, it could be justified, but these were mostly typical biker punks, who happened to have a leader intelligent enough to know what not to do or allow, to keep the group from facing the bloody retribution of an irate mob. The fact they didn't rape or kill the girl when beating her up, only driving her from the town with lies of her being betrayed by her few remaining friends, showed a twisted genius.

As much as it pained Karen to keep her student's identity a secret, much as it did to keep her own, it would not be in Kyle & Vala Bartley's best interests for them to find out about Rook, or vice-versa.

**4 October 2030**

The Brasilia radiation counters were beginning to pick up the light fallout from the Tisiphone reactor venting as the last of the Vulcan Division transports lifted off for Africa. By this time, the first arrivals were already in the process of unpacking.

"I didn't realize we had so much," Scott said, slumping onto the bed in the command quarters, dropping the last box of their personal property to the floor.

"We didn't, at Brasilia," Marie replied, setting her box on top of the one Scott had dropped. "Most of this stuff has been in storage since we left Tyrol - some of it from when we left the SDF-3 to go onto the Farrago. When we decided to set up here, the boxes were dropped here by the Korra'ti's shuttles, so we wouldn't have to transport them across the Atlantic. They've been stacked in a hangar for a month."

"You could have warned me, before I stayed up for the entire trip over. There's no way we can unpack all this stuff tonight."

"Who says we have to?"

"Well, we have to at least set up the girls' room."

"Spoilsport, but you're right. If only Karen was here, we'd be set up in no time."

"We'll just have to make do without her for the next two months. She has her own duties."

"I know. You unpack and assemble the beds; I'll go get the girls from the nursery."

"Yes, milady. Should I scrub the fireplace while I'm at it, milady?"

"Cinderella, you're not. For one thing, you'd never fit in the dress - or the shoes. Putting the beds together isn't that hard, just time-consuming, and I'll do the rest."

"Deal. I'm just glad that a bed for us was already here."

By the time she returned with the girls, he was asleep, exhausted from the last 72 hours. She made up the baby beds, tucked the girls in, then pulled a blanket from a box, laid down next to Scott on the bare mattress, and pulled the blanket over them, not bothering to undress.

"Good morning, this is the African Commonwealth Broadcasting System, English Network," the female morning news anchor's voice filtered from the wall speakers, which unlike the flat TV screen, were partially obscured by the boxes of unpacked clothes. "Now, for the morning's top story. Last night, the former Southern Cross base in the Zaire Quadrant was reoccupied by a military force, believed to be part of the Robotech Expeditionary Force. Sources in the quadrant report numerous sightings of transports of Southern Cross, Zentraedi, and RDF design over the last two months, including the Zentraedi cruiser with RDF markings that overflew the quadrant on the 30th. This activity culminated in last night's operations, when over fifty landings were reported in a twelve hour period, starting around 1600 New Nairobi time yesterday.

"Commonwealth Chairman Morgan Jackson has made numerous attempts to contact the new arrivals. However, these attempts have been answered only with the promise of a statement to be given at noon today, after which the group will open up a dialogue with the Commonwealth Parliament concerning mutual defense obligations. We will simulcast this statement in its entirety, when given.

"In other world news, there is an unconfirmed report of a minor nuclear accident at an unknown location in South America. The incident has produced slightly higher than normal radiation counts as far south as Montevideo, but is of little consequence, in comparison to the fallout from the few radioactive areas left from Dolza's bombardment in 2011. In fact, it was only the difference in content of the fallout from this event that allowed its discovery by weather stations, as even adding it to normal trace radiation from 2011 does not cause the radiation approach danger levels, or even place the overall level beyond normal seasonal fluctuation, such as caused by dust storms originating in areas that once had fission power plants. The unconfirmed aspect of the report seems to stem from the fact that all known remaining fission plants are accounted for, and none are properly located to have been the source." The show then turned to local news, and Marie muted the sound.

"Well, it's nice to have television again, even if they haven't got the greatest reporter network."

"Believe it or not, they're probably the biggest broadcast agency left. They have three networks, with nearly identical programming, but in English, French and Swahili. Since the breakup of the CNN survivors in 2019, and the nationalization of MBS during the Masters' war, global news reporting has nearly collapsed. The Masters taking out all the satellites in geostationary orbit didn't help matters."

"True. Is this why you held off broadcast of our mission statement?"

"Sort of. I wanted it to originate in a country with a free press, so that it wouldn't appear as if we were trying to 'one-up' the government. We're relaying the broadcast to Japan and Quebec, who also have free media, and it will be up to them how and when to broadcast it. We're sending it to Patagonia, Scandinavia and the EBSIS, as well, but it's likely only their governments will see it."

"Have you decided yet what you're going to say?"

"No; I have a few notes, but I thought I'd ad-lib most of it. The less it sounds prepared, the better. People are too used to the spin campaigns of the UEG and Southern Cross from the war to fully believe a polished presentation."

"Will you tell them everything?"

"I'm not sure. There's their need to know on one side; but on the other hand, we don't know how people will react to finding out the Invid will get here before the REF. We can't let hope die. If we do, Earth won't stand a chance."

**Interlude: Press Statement given by Col. Scott C. Freeman, REF, to the people of the African Commonwealth, 10/05/2030.**

"People of Africa, let me introduce myself. I am Scott Freeman, a colonel in the Robotech Expeditionary Force, and commander of REF Vulcan Division. Along with John Carpenter's Mercury Division, which arrived during the recent war with the Robotech Masters, and Jonathan Wolfe's Venus Division, which arrived in South America last month, we were sent back to Earth to prepare it to face an imminent invasion by an alien race known as the Invid.

"Unlike the Zentraedi, or their Tyrolean masters, the Invid are an inhuman race, bent on only one goal. Unfortunately, that goal is revenge on the Zentraedi and Tyroleans for the rape of their world, years ago, and they see no real distinction between those races and our own. This is partially because of the genetic kinship we have to those races. But the primary reason is because we use Robotechnology, which is derivative of what the Masters stole from the Invid.

"We always knew that there was an organic component to Robotechnology, which the Zentraedi and Tyroleans called 'Protoculture', that we could not duplicate on Earth. That organic component was the Invid Flower of Life, their sole food source. The Zentraedi all but defoliated the Invid home world to power the Tyrolean war machine, but the Invid survived, using their stored food reserves and the few surviving groves to build up their forces. They weren't much of a threat to the Masters or to anyone else - until the Zentraedi were destroyed over Earth, and the Robotech Masters abandoned Tyrol to come here in search of Zor's battle fortress.

"The Masters had used their ill-gotten Protoculture to conquer hundreds of star systems, using the Zentraedi as enforcers. A few of these worlds, they attempted to sow with the Flowers of Life, but only mutant plants grew, unusable for Protoculture production. However, while neither they nor the Invid could use the plants militarily, the Invid COULD use them as nourishment, and proceeded to conquer and enslave these worlds after the Zentraedi defeat, to use their flowers as food, and allow the remaining normal supply on their home world to be put entirely into production of weapons. That accomplished, they began to search for the Masters' supply of the seeds.

"It was at this point the SDF-3 arrived, while the Invid were scouring Tyrol, looking for the Masters' storage matrix, as it held the secret of restoring Optera, the Invid home world, to life. However, the Masters had left Tyrol looking for it as well, as their greatest scientist, Zor, had betrayed them, and sent it away, in an attempt to stop their wars of conquest. That storage matrix was on the SDF-1, Zor's research ship, and the matrix had gone undiscovered in the 30 years the ship was here on Earth.

"When the Masters' own flagship was destroyed over the ruins of Macross, the Masters had been in the process of recovering that matrix, and the seeds and spores it contained were scattered to the winds, and unlike the versions grown elsewhere, are identical to the Opteran version. These alien plants are the ones that have seemingly sprouted up from nothing around the globe in the last few months, though most heavily in North America.

"The Invid are currently homeless, their home world captured by the REF after a division occurred within the Invid society. The survivors are now both homeless, and living on a quickly diminishing supply of food. However, that faction also had discovered Earth through a space probe during the war, and are without a doubt, on their way here to seize Earth as their own. For their survival, they have no other option.

"There will be no parley with the Invid; any attempt to do so will fall on deaf ears, thanks to the atrocities the Masters and Zentraedi inflicted on that race. The Invid will strike hard, fast, without remorse, and with a fanaticism that is unmatched in human history. They would overwhelm even a united Earth; out current disunity makes our defeat certain. It took the REF and seven allied worlds SIX YEARS to defeat only one-half the Invid. The half that is on its way here took no part in that war, but will surely be seeking revenge for that defeat.

"But, there is hope. The violence of an Invid invasion is directly linked to the initial resistance by those invaded. Once an invasion is completed, the Invid will become settled in, and that has always led to their becoming complacent. That will be our time to rise against them. It worked on all the worlds we helped liberate from Invid occupation; it should work here as well, as long as we do not squander our resources in an initial, futile attempt to resist. We are currently training the core of multiple resistance networks that will lead the fight against the invaders, in areas without strong central governments; we ask that the nations of the world do the same for within their own borders, instead of building up visible armed forces that will only be destroyed, and lead to harsher treatment of the surviving populace.

"You might be wondering to yourself, 'What about the REF? Where is the SDF-3?' The answer is not a simple one. The REF was weakened in its earlier war with the Invid, and by a civil war within the force brought on by a madman who sought to ally himself with the Invid, in order to return to Earth as a conqueror. In addition, when the SDF-3 arrived over Tyrol, the Invid fleet there attacked it without provocation, believing it to be the SDF-1, and it suffered severe damage to its fold systems. This damage was to such an extent that the entire fold drive has to be replaced from scratch, and the resources to do such component construction were destroyed by those same rampaging Invid, in their search for the Protoculture matrix. As a result, the REF has had to rebuild Tyrol's ship construction facilities from scratch, before being able to replace the fold drive itself. Current projections put that project still over three years from completion.

"But, just because the REF is delayed, does not mean that they are not coming back. They WILL return; my forces are proof of this, as are the aforementioned Mercury and Venus Divisions. I served with the Hunters for the entire length of the Sentinel Worlds campaign, from the liberation of Tyrol to the defeat of the REF traitor's forces on Optera. If the main body of the REF could be here, they would have already returned. But for now, the Hunters are leading the effort to rebuild and rearm, to bring back the REF and their allies as a force that the Invid cannot stand against.

"If you think that my pleas are only hollow promises, I can think of only one way to prove my sincerity to you. Marie, bring the girls here... This is my wife Marie, a member of the famous Sterling family, and these are our two daughters, Lisa and Miriya. We could have left them with their namesakes on Tyrol and Haydon IV, out of harm's way. But, they are our children, and it would be wrong to let them grow up without us, the way my in-law Dana grew up without her parents, who were with the REF. Despite the danger – perhaps even because of it – we felt it would be best to have them here with us. Having them here shows you that we, too, have something to fight for; that we aren't trying to urge you to risk yourself to do something we aren't willing to risk all to do ourselves.

"We must prevent on Earth, what happened on the worlds of the former Tyrolean Empire. We must bite the bullet, prepare for the long term, steel ourselves for the worst, and await the coming of the Invid. It is our only hope.

"I thank you for your time, and letting my warning be heard."

**Chapter Five:**

"Leave it to the EBSIS to fiddle while the world burns."

- Scott Freeman, October 2030

**21 October 2030**

"Roy, how goes the repairs to the Kramer?"

"Almost done. Now that we're out in the open, I was able to check the records of the Factory Satellite. The parts we needed to fix the engines were some of the ones left as surplus when Breetai's ship was disassembled to get the materials to build the SDF-3 and the Southern Cross fleet. A Zentraedi planetary landing pod retrofitted for in-system cargo hauling is en route, with an ETA of five days, with the parts and our first shipment of mecha for the base."

"First shipment? The way you said that, is almost like there aren't any there now."

"Didn't you know? There weren't until we showed up with a dozen rowboats."

"That can't be! We made an outlay for several dozen of the Series Two Destroids and two wings of Veritechs, one of Alphas and one of Logans. What happened to them?"

"Edwards and Leonard - that's what happened to them. Adams, doing T.R.'s bidding, seized all the mecha to be sent to Earth and added them to the SDF-3 complement right before launch, remember?"

Scott did, with mixed emotions. The incident almost destroyed relations between the two halves of the RDF, and Leonard even went so far as to pull all remaining RDF under the ASC sub-command in response, though many pre-existing units (such as Falco's Avenger Squadron) continued to refer to themselves as RDF instead of ASC, as technically the two were still the same entity. As a result, the RDF/ASC that should have been prepared for the Masters was instead woefully ill-equipped. The only thing that was even the remotest saving grace of the whole fiasco is that the additional mecha almost certainly saved the REF from destruction.

"Well, in addition to that - if not actually a form of retaliation - Leonard seized all the mecha that were already ground-side that were earmarked for Gloval Base. What was sent instead were some old museum pieces - literally."

"What? First generation Destroids?"

"I wish. Try two dozen Tomcats."

"Tomcats?"

"F-14 fighters; the aircraft design that the jet mode of the VF-1 was based on. The planes my squadron in the GLOBAL WAR used, before the F-203 Dragon entered service. In fact, they even have the markings of the Jolly Rogers!"

"Jesus."

"The worst part of it all, is that our landing of the Kramer revealed Gloval's location to our neighbors to the north. Now that they know, they've issued us an ultimatum. According to them, the site is within their UEG recognized boundaries, and therefore is their property. They demand we abandon the site and all of its equipment, or face reprisals."

"Tell them to stuff it. The Middle East was a UEDC protectorate under the UNEG charter, and the RDF is the last surviving vestige of that government. The entire sector surrounding the installation was assigned to the base, in perpetuity, and made autonomous from the RDF command structure prior to the SDF-3 departure. Any decisions made by the UEG after 2020 concerning the area were made without any legal authority to do so. As the highest ranking officer of the project, it is entirely within your jurisdiction, not anyone else's, as to who has what authority over the base. Legally, you could claim they are trespassing on your sovereign territory."

"I don't want to push things that far, but I may not be given the choice. I have a couple of questions for you."

"Shoot."

"First of all, should I hold the Kramer here, after the parts arrive? Their fire support would make the base more defensible before the second mecha shipment arrives, but every minute they are here leaves open the possibility of the EBSIS getting their hands on it. I'd rather not have a repeat of the Tsiolkovsky Incident." That incident, over 20 years earlier, was a hijacking of Earth's third interplanetary warship, the completed but not commissioned UNSS Tsiolkovsky, by anti-unification forces with the intent of using it to destroy Mars Base Sara. The base was evacuated by the first ship of the class, the Oberth, but that ship was destroyed by the Tsiolkovsky, which in turn was destroyed by the third ship, the Goddard. That incident spelled the end of orbital construction prior to the arrival of Dolza, as all remaining construction was shifted to the Lunar shipyards.

"Have them leave as soon as they can. We can send up some of our forces to assist in your defense. What was your second question?"

"Luna Base and ALUCE are too exposed, and are still undergoing repairs anyway, but Copernicus Base is nearing completion, and is almost entirely underground. The new Farside shipyards are underground as well, and barring discovery by the Invid, should be complete by 2033. Should Rolf transfer his command to one of them? Jon, Maria and I think so, to keep him out of the war zone, but he's afraid it would put him too far from the majority of his command."

"Put me down as in favor of the move, as well. We're a lot more vulnerable than Copernicus, and we need to disperse our command structure more."

"That makes it pretty much unanimous from all of us directly serving under him. I think that will make him see the need better. One more thing - have you noticed that Rick's been acting a bit evasive in the inter-system conferences?"

"Yeah - he's apparently hiding something, but I don't know what it could be."

"Well, I finally got him to come clean about it, but I still don't think he's giving me the whole story. Two days before we got the real-time link to Tyrol running at Brasilia, to tell them about the new fold equations developed by Nichols, Mars Division folded from Tyrol. Its fold system used the same faulty mathematics as the other two major waves, after a ship launched to test a new system developed by Lang never reported in. It should arrive sometime between late 2032 and early 's the strange thing - it's supposed to consist of fifteen thousand personnel."

"Fifteen thousand? That can't be. There were less than three times that many left in the REF when we left, and most of those were vital to the SDF-3, or civilians out of the viable range for military service. Hell, the REF was so short-handed, they put MINMEI through basic training after she snuck along on the mission!"

"Maybe the force is mostly Sentinels, or they recruited Sentinel race volunteers to replace part of the SDF-3 crew. I guess we'll find out when they get here. I'm going to call the Soviets now, with my answer. I'll contact you immediately afterward, with their response. Fokker out."

"Why do I get the feeling that it's going to be one of THOSE days?" Scott asked himself, leaning back in his chair after the viewscreen went black.

"Well, Scott, I told them what they could do with their threats," Roy told Scott, as the latter finished off his lunch. "After several attempts to try to convince me I was wrong, which I was able to counter with evidence, they grumbled a bit, then cut me off. As a result, I've put the base on alert, and would really like it if you could send a wing of your fighters up here."

"I'll send them up tonight, as soon as I can get them ready for the trip. I'll come up with my personal squad in the morning, and you can ride with us to scout out the situation."

"Great. What time can I expect you?"

"How does 0700 sound?"

"Seven sounds good. Do you want to have breakfast up here?"

"Why not? There will be six of us coming up, and I warn you ahead of time, that Max and Rick compared my squad's appetites to Ben Dixon's."

"I can tell that by your plate. See you then."

Very little was said over breakfast, and what was said had very little to do with the day ahead. When the flight lifted off at 0830, Roy was in the navigator's chair of Marie's Beta.

"Well, Roy; where should we start? And, how do you like what you see of the Beta?"

"Well, it's better armored and more suited for the low altitude and space missions that are the common types today, but I'm from the old 'turn and burn' school, from the pre-Robotech days, and even my flying against the Zentraedi reflected it. As for our start point, let's try the Riyadh ruins observation post, before heading to the Gulf to check out their oil wells. We'll then overfly Iraq to check out their refineries, then over Syria to the Med, to take a quick look at the area where one of Maria's patrols disappeared last week."

"Yes sir. Highlander squad, this is Two. The General wants us to set course oh-one-one to Riyadh crater, speed 300 knots. If there's anything unusual, orbit the target."

Thirty minutes later, they were circling over the blasted remains of what once had been the Saudi capital, hit by a nuclear artillery shell fired by Iraq during the Third Gulf War, which was one of the conflicts that fed into and fueled the Global War (in addition of scaring the larger nations into not using their own nuclear weapons).

"I thought you said there was a base here, Roy?" Scott asked.

"There was; primarily tents and portable buildings. Look to the south; your five. There's the dirt road network that formed between them. It looks like they bugged out in a hurry. I don't like this at all."

"Guys, I hate to interrupt, but the low altitude threat indicator is going off like crazy! General, want to take a more detailed look with the sensor displays in your station?"

"Okay. It looks like we have multiple bogies, moving NOE, speed about 250 kilometers an hour, or about 130 knots if actually flying instead of being ground or hover vehicles. Correction, only three bogies appear to actually be flying, at about 100 meters, the rest are ground or ground-effect vehicles."

"Range?"

"Fifteen kilometers and closing. If they hadn't been moving so fast, we would have missed them from our own low altitude introducing ground clutter. As it is, we can outrun them, but I don't think we're the target; Gloval is. They aren't on a course to directly intercept us."

"We'll have to intercept them ourselves, and hope we have surprise on our side. Wait a minute - that speed is too fast for any known EBSIS mecha, or even Southern Cross mecha."

"Bioroids, then?"

"That many, still loose? I doubt it. Wait; I'm finally picking up something with the IFF; the flyers must be in range now. They're -"

"Zentraedi!" Kayra cut in from her Alpha. "The three flying targets are Queadlun-rau flight suits - they even still have their old transponders working."

"I didn't think there were any of those suits left on Earth. The REF tried to recover as many as they could for its use."

"There were two in museums, that weren't repairable, and probably several more in the hands of Zentraedi holdouts. But, the EBSIS still has a small unit of full-size Zentraedi. The numbers match up; forty-two, three of which own Queadlun-rau armor suits. They're the EBSIS, all right. All right, everyone. Attack plan Tango; Alphas, take the armors, while the Betas blanket the lighter stuff with area munitions to do as little damage to the pilots as possible, while taking out their pods. The spread patterns we used on Invid Hellcats should be sufficient for Regults. Try not to kill unless you have to - I doubt their superiors informed them about the Invid, and there's a good chance they'll defect when they find out. Go for separation in three-two-one-MARK!"

As the Alphas separated and changed to Battloid mode, volleys of multi-warhead missiles dropped from the Betas' missile bays, each missile shedding its casing in mid-flight and breaking into its submunitions - four self-steering warheads, each equal in power to the standard multi-role missiles used by the Alpha. These smaller missiles struck the ground in overlapping diamond formations, in turn overlapping the edges of other bursts, resulting in a blanket of explosions that served to alert the Zentraedi to the Veritechs' presence. This didn't matter much, seeing as the explosions disabled fifteen of the Regults, and caused eight more, mostly the missile variants, to explode.

Of the surviving Regults, none had missile capability, nor did the six general power armor suits. The one Glaug present suffered the ignoble fate if firing off a missile volley, which was shot down, then having its power router fail when it tried to power up for a particle beam volley, shutting down the mecha. Marie was moving in for the kill when the pilot bailed out, waving a towel big enough to carpet her and Scott's apartment. The Betas began to orbit the ground-pounders, out of range of any remaining energy weapons, but able to strike back with missiles if they needed.

Marie then turned her attention to the three Alpha/FPA match-ups. Janet had taken out her opponent, and was trying to help her brother with his, trying not have the same result as with her foe (who unfortunately exploded from damage to her missile load). She looked for the last match, Kayra versus the last of the armors, and was horrified by what she saw.

Kayra had forgone trying to use her weaponry to subdue her opponent, after a very even fight where neither combatant could connect with ranged weapons. Instead, Kayra had dove her Battloid straight into the side of the much larger armor, hooking the legs and arms around the right arm and torso. From that position, none of the armor's weaponry could be brought to bear on her. Everyone, even the Zentraedi on the ground and the other armor pilot, turned their attention to the struggle, which was being broadcast in the clear, for both sides to hear.

"Please, stop fighting! We are not your enemy!" Kayra cried out, in Zentraedi.

"You have violated sovereign lands of the Soviet State. It is you who must surrender," the Quadrono pilot replied, in a strangely familiar voice.

"Please, sister, it is for the good of all that I ask you to stop!"

"By what right do you dare call me 'sister', Micronian?"

"I am a micronized Zentraedi; a former Quadrono, like yourself. I have seen the lost city of Zarkopolis. I have walked the flying streets of Haydon's world. I have fought the Invid over Fantoma and on their homeworld of Optera, all in the last six years!"

"You lie!"

"Do you know of any humans who know of the Invid? The Invid are on their way to this world, and you would waste your energy fighting those who would oppose them, in service of those who have been warned of the Invid threat, but refused to listen - or even ask you if it were possible?"

The Quadrono stopped struggling. "You have my attention. I agree to a cease-fire, to let you explain what news you have of the Invid."

The two mecha separated, and sat down facing each other, the Alpha in Guardian mode. Kayra popped her canopy, and sat on the edge of the cockpit, as her opponent opened up her own mecha, and climbed out of the suit, the remaining armor suit covering her, to make sure it wasn't a trap. Kayra began her story, removing her helmet to allow the Zentraedi to see that she truly was a Zentraedi.

"I was part of the mission the RDF sent to Tyrol. We arrived over that moon to find the Robotech Masters gone, and the Invid victorious in their absence. Under Breetai and the Hunters, we freed Fantoma and Tyrol, then the local group worlds. Finally, we attacked Optera, where we killed the Regent."

"Then where is Breetai, and how did you return here?"

"The Korra'ti, a scout ship I helped the RDF salvage fourteen years ago, made its way to Optera, after folding from Earth to Tyrol to escape the arrival of the Robotech Masters. There, it joined us in the defeat of the Regent's Invid. After the fight ended, Breetai sent us here aboard it, to warn Earth of the coming war, while he stayed behind with his mate and their child to ready the REF for the fight ahead, to liberate Earth."

"Breetai has a child?"

Lord Breetai has taken one of our number, Kazianna Hesh, as his mate, and they have a son, conceived in the micronian manner, but while remaining normal Zentraedi size after being re-enlarged to recover the materials we needed to repair the SDF-3 from damage done by the Invid. At least ten other couples were expecting children when we left, and Miriya and her human mate have had a second daughter, on Haydon's world. My mate and I have two daughters ourselves, one of which served clandestinely in the Southern Cross against the Masters, and aided in their defeat."

"You sound so sincere, yet all you are saying sounds too fantastic to be true. You say the Regent is dead; what of the Regis? Is she the threat you came to warn Earth about?"

"Yes. Earlier this year, the Masters were on the verge of defeating the humans of the West, when they were destroyed by my daughter, Miriya's older daughter, Dana, and Dana's lover, a clone of the great Zor, who broke free of the Masters' control. In the Masters' destruction, Zor's matrix, which had been hidden on his fortress, but never found, was shattered, and the seeds and spores of the Invid plants it contained, the very source of Protoculture, were released, spread by the winds. The Regis had split with the Regent shortly before the REF began to fight the Regent, taking half of her race with her. She has been pursuing the Masters and Zor's ship separately from her mate since, and one of her sensor nebula creations was over Earth earlier this year, and witnessed the Masters' destruction, and the release of the spores."

"Are you sure of this?"

"That nebula could have picked up that release from parsecs away, let alone from within the orbit of Earth's moon, where it was during the final battle. We had hoped to make it here in time to try to prevent the Masters from depleting Earth's resources, but arrived a month too late. Since then, we have tried to warn all the remaining Earth governments of the danger, but many see our attempts to unify the world's defenses as an attempt to subvert their governments for our own purposes. The Soviets are one of those, unable to see the destruction in the future, because of their greed for today's power.

"In our actions, trying to disarm you, with a minimum of casualties, you should see our sincerity. We regret the loss of nine of your force, but there wasn't much we could do to prevent your assault on our base. Please, join us as allies against our ancient enemy, as we need as much help as possible. Besides, do you not think it strange that the Soviets would send your entire force against us, without support from other forces? They probably considered you expendable, only a means to soften the base up for troops they prized more."

"There is truth in your words; we have turned a blind eye to their schemes for far too long. We are with you."

"Thank you; you won't regret your choice. My name is Kayra; Kayra Marinoni Freeman."

"I am Nyra. I look forward to meeting your daughters."

"Why do you wish to meet them?"

"Could you not tell by my voice, Kayra? Or how you knew my tactics all too well? You were created late in the war with the humans; did you forget that another had to provide the sample from which you were made? Nyra finally removed her own helmet, and green hair cascaded past her shoulders. Except for size, she was identical to Kayra in every way. "I suspected from your prowess, but it wasn't until I heard your voice that I was sure. We truly are sisters."

"No wonder we were so evenly matched. Let me call a transport for you and your troops, and we can talk about my family on the trip to my base. We have much to discuss, sister."

**Chapter Six:**

"Once the training crew from Brasilia turned over their operations to the replacements they had trained, I had to figure out how to restructure my personal squadron. I finally decided on a variation of the original squadron system used with the early RDF's Valkyrie squadrons, only with Legios pairs taking the place of each single VF-1. There was Marie and I at the top, with our personal squad consisting of Shannon & Kayra's Legios, as well as Janet & Roger's. Each of them was in turn oversaw two smaller squads, typically of 3 Legios each. One squad didn't fit the pattern, consisting of six mixed Veritechs - Dana & Zor's Legios, the Tensens in highly modified VF-1s, and the Tylers in two of our rare Vindicator attack Veritechs. With their special forces training, this last squad would prove to be the most important in the Invid War, but they almost didn't make it there."

- Scott Freeman, Memories of the Madness

**16 November 2030**

"Major Sterling reporting as ordered, sir," Dana said somewhat facetiously to her brother-in-law, snapping off an exaggerated salute while trying to keep her eyes off his office's decor, which could only be described as 'techno-safari'. The walls were covered with a novelty wallpaper made to resemble a thatch hut's walls. On the left wall, a Weatherby .460 Magnum big game rifle and a Karbarran air rifle were mounted, barrels crossed. On the right wall, a Zulu spear and shield were mounted next to a Praxian naginata. In the corners away from the entrance, were two mounted heads - the left that of a male lion (of unknown, pre-global-war origin, liberated from a out-of-business bar by the previous tenants), the right that of an Invid Cougar Inorganic. Behind the desk, three shields showed group affiliation - the RDF "kite" shield on the left, the once-unofficial Sentinels emblem on the right, and the center being the unit insignia of Highlander Squadron, Vulcan Division. This insignia was the stylized solar system orbit pattern Scott had once nominated for the REF return heraldry, with an additional cometary orbit symbolizing the quasi-mythical planet Vulcan. This pattern was bisected by a sword, and subdued in the background was the tri-star state shield of Tennessee, the birthplace of Scott's parents.

"I see you like what your sister's done to my office," Scott said, trying to reel Dana back in from her examination of the room's less-than-regulation decorations.

"Well, it's... uh... different..."

"I think Marie's been watching too many old movies. I had to talk her out of putting an a sound system with tribal chants playing in the background."

"You're kidding, right?"

"Actually, yeah. But she does have a CD of the stuff, and she had it playing underneath the desk on a portable stereo when she first showed me the office."

"Back on the subject of my presence; what's the new assignment you have for me?"

"Your mecha assignments have been processed - such as they are. It's a pretty mixed bag."

"How mixed? I don't like the sound of this."

"You'll have at your disposal six rather nonstandard Veritechs, in addition to your VR-041s. Note that you'll either need to arrange installation of your personal Sabers into the Veritechs in place of the Battlers that came with them, or requisition additional ones to be placed there. I'll leave the choice up to you, because I know how some people get accustomed to a specific suit."

"So far, that sounds pretty standard."

"This is where things start getting unusual. All six Veritechs have been outfitted with what's code named a 'shadow device'. Essentially, it's a cloaking system that produces an artificial doppler shift of the Protoculture energy emissions of the mecha's power plant to frequencies out of the range of Invid sensors. Another part of the device also affects electro-magnetic energy within a specific radius around the mecha, and is a derivative of the cloaking system the Masters had built into the _Korra'ti_.."

"Affects it, how?"

"Energy, be it visible light, radio, or radar, has its frequency altered on entering the field. This doesn't have much effect on visible light, but the radio and radar waves entering the area are altered enough that they won't read as being on the same frequency as before. Essentially, this alteration makes the mecha invisible to active radar, as the reflected radar signal is altered to the point where it is no longer the frequency the receiver is set to receive. With enough power, and a large version of the device, you could probably make an entire fleet invisible to radar, but you'd about have to gut a Tristar or Ikazuchi class vessel to carry and power it. I've heard that's what the current plan for Jupiter Division and later mission elements to utilize, in order to get close enough to Earth to launch fighters."

"It messes with light and radio? Then how will be able to communicate between mecha, as that would mess up both radios and laser comms?"

"Oh, you can still pick up and receive them, even with normal sets - it's just that the signals get altered entering the shadow field of another mecha, to a different frequency. The communications gear of the mecha take this into account, and when your shadow device is active, it shifts the display to show the real frequency, not the shifted one. The same holds true for the early warning system, for identifying types of radar it might pick up, even if the radar can't lock onto you. The reason for that, of course, is the ability to use shadow-equipped fighters to take out SAM sites."

"And this all adds up to?"

"With a properly functioning shadow device, opponents will be unable to spot you with radar or Protoculture sensors. They will only be able to use visual spotting or passive sensors to target. It nearly eliminates threats from missiles, and makes opponents have to depend on energy and projectile weapons for attacks on the fighters, in a classic dogfight or strafing role, and in dealing with that, mecha have the edge, because of the ability to dodge, make radical speed drops, and the like through changing modes. Invid will have it even worse, if projections hold up, as intelligence from an Invid defector during the Sentinels war indicates that the vast majority of their troops are mentally conditioned to ignore items not specifically Protoculture powered, unless the target already actively hostile or specific orders given for the situation, until they approach within a certain radius, depending if in the air, space, or on the ground. In other words, under the right conditions, you could walk up on foot to within 20 meters or less of Invid, carrying an H-Bomb, and not even draw a stare, while coming within 250 meters with an H90 turned on would stir up a hornet's nest in the same situation."

"You said a mixed bag of mecha - what did you mean by that?"

"Well, you and Zor will be getting a Legios tandem, with his Beta rigged to allow him to utilize his reawakened science skills in the field. The others, on the other hand, are using modernized versions of some of the oldest mecha in our complement."

"VF-1s?"

"Specifically, the Tylers will be flying VVF-1S Vindicators."

"Vindicators? Never heard of them."

"They're linear descendants of the YVF-2 Veritas Veritechs that saw limited service in the Malcontent wars. The Veritas development program was split into two separate design programs in 2016 - one led to the production of the Alpha series, which was made even smaller than the Veritas, the other to the original Vindicator. As a result, the two mecha look a lot alike - if you ignore the Vindicator Battloid being nearly the size of a Valkyrie, and having controls closer to those of the later Valkyries than the Alphas. The primary reason why the Vindicator was kept in development was to retain a mecha large enough to engage Zentraedi in melee, while more heavily armed than the Valkyrie. What few Zentraedi we found out there were allies, not enemies, so it underwent a major redesign in the last few years.

The original design drew on the existing stores of short-range multi-purpose missiles left over from the First Robotech War. After all, the munitions were plentiful, and the typical Zentraedi pod could be disabled by only one or two missiles - more damage was overkill. However, the typical Invid are a much tougher nut to crack, so to speak, so the launchers were upgraded to use the similarly sized heavy intermediate-range missiles developed for the Beta. The avionics and weapons control computers were upgraded to match the new role, freeing up enough space to allow the mecha to carry a shadow device.

The gun pods were originally either GU-12s or EU-12s, the latter being a short-barreled version of the EU-11 you're familiar with from your tanker days. The newest version, the EU-12 Mod4, retains its normal weapons function, but also has the capability to produce an ion blast that can create holes in force fields, such as those used by Invid Hives and Tyrolean spacecraft - not to mention REF pinpoints and full barrier shields. It's because of that capability that access to the Mod4s has been highly restricted by Lang, to prevent them from falling into enemy hands and the technology turned against us - as it would have been, had T.R.'s last reincarnation known about them. Current work is geared toward developing a smaller version for Alpha use."

"Sounds to me like you should have put Alex and Noel in the Legios, and given me the Vindicators."

"We thought of that, but Zor specifically requested the Beta for his modifications."

"Now, that leaves the two junior members of my squad. What are you putting them into?"

"Highly modified VF-1s - a couple of prototype rebuilds, actually. The legs have more powerful engines, originally designed for the VFX-4 prototype, giving them a passing resemblance to normal legs with the Super VF package conformal tanks permanently mounted. Similarly, the arms were refitted to contain variants of the Super's arm launchers as part of their integral equipment. The biggest change, however, is a package that mounts like the space boosters, but can be used in the atmosphere."

"How do you manage that? Never mind the aerodynamics, the vertical stabilizers are folded down when you mount the boosters. Even with fly-by-light systems, it would be unstable at sub-mach speeds, and breaking mach would be impossible."

"Instead of two pieces, the back mount is a conformal single piece, and a lot more aerodynamic. Additional control surfaces are added to replace the ones covered by the mounting, though the pack can still be jettisoned, and for that reason the original stabilizers are retained. Instead of thrusters, the augmentation pack contains the mech's shadow device, Cyclone storage, modified versions of the Beta MM-40 pop-up missile launchers, and reaction mass tanks for space use.

"It also contains a conformal force field derived from the Zentraedi fighter's, that provides minimal protection from incoming weapons. Its real purpose is, when operating, to reduce the drag coefficient of the craft by about 80%, allowing it to reach atmospheric speeds greater than that of the original design. Without the field active, it's only capable of atmospheric speeds comparable to the Alpha. Of course, having it active prevents any weapons fire, except firing the head turret at rearward targets. Then again, if you're using the mech to outrun your opponents, that's the direction you'll be needing to fire, anyway."

"And you said it's a prototype system - just how prototype?"

"The third and fourth operational test beds - the first two crashed in testing on Tyrol. The first was from a programming fault in the fly-by-light system concerning the transition between flight with and without the force field, a problem since corrected. The other was from the disruption of aerodynamics that result from jettisoning the back mount, due to a component fire, at ten meters altitude. The pack separation caused a downward force that caused a wing to clip a ground obstruction, causing the prototype to cartwheel along the ground, disintegrating along the way. Both pilots died, though a case can be made that the latter was from an error in judgement by the pilot, in not gaining altitude before attempting the jettison."

"That's just lovely."

"Well, it's not like you'll actually be using them for reasons other than transport on your first mission, so make sure you go over the specific idiosyncracies of the fighters with them, before clearing them to use in combat, or at sonic speeds."

"And the mission is?"

"While the EBSIS is still a bit sore about the defection of Nyra Marinoni's force, it's not so upset that it would do anything to provoke a hostile reaction - at least not since the purpose of Nyra's bunch was part of a plan to seize the _Kramer_. And, with our possessing two spacecraft, the risk of orbital bombardment is too great for them. There is another problem, though. In the last month, they've lost several Battloid patrols in the same area Fortress Gloval's lost several Cyclone patrols."

"And, where would that be?"

"Along the East end of the Med - specifically in the wastes that used to be Israel, Palestine and Jordan. Whatever it is that's responsible, it has hit so hard and fast each time that only one distress call has ever been made, and it was cut off before they identified their assailants. After making certain that the other wasn't responsible for the disappearances, we and the EBSIS mid-east military district have arranged to send a joint patrol in to investigate. Your squad will be our representative in the search."

"Why me? My unit just finished retraining, and this is hardly the type of thing we trained for."

"I see you're nowhere near as rash as Rolf said you used to be. Really, volunteering for space missions in ground mecha?"

"Nearly losing everything can make one change their perspectives."

"True. Well, the reason I chose you and your squad is that we did manage to get one small piece of evidence from one of the disappearance scenes. Whatever was responsible for the actions, took care to clean up after each ambush, to the point that while we found impact sites from projectile weapons, we only found traces of one spent round that wasn't dug back out of the ground. It MIGHT be from a Bioroid weapon drum; then again, it could also be from one of any number of twenty to thirty millimeter weapons used by combatants in the wars that wracked the area from Israel's founding in 1948 until the Mideast nuclear exchange of 1998 destroyed the region. On the off chance it is from a Bioroid, as testing of the metallic content suggests, then your group has the most experience dealing and insight with how to deal with Tyrolean forces - in combat and in avoiding combat."

"So, you're limiting us to the Cyclones for the mission?"

"I've already told you how sensitive the contents of the Veritechs are, so there's one reason by itself. The other is that the Soviet group you'll be with will be in their Battloids, and being much closer to the ground, you might spot clues they'd otherwise miss. There's also the fact that there has never been an attack on any patrol using flight-capable mecha - our Veritechs, or their salvaged and rebuilt ones."

"So, what's the plan for getting the two parts of the mission together?"

"You'll fly your Veritechs up to Gloval, and get final instructions from their base commander. After that briefing, you'll proceed to the rendezvous point on your Cyclones, with one of you carrying a satellite transceiver in place of one of Cyclone saddlebags, to allow you to make regular report and call for help, if need be."

"When do we leave?"

"Tomorrow morning, at 0600. That will give you time to requisition your new uniforms, test-fly your new mechs, and make whatever other personal arrangements you might need. One thing of note is that your unit will have the same designation in Highlander Squadron, that the Highlanders had in Skull, under your parents. I hope you like green."

"I can get used to it; it'll work better on jungle ops, anyway. It'll stick out badly in the desert, but not as much as those lumbering Soviet Destroid wanna-bees, so that's not a problem for now."

"Also, remember that you'll be representing all of us, so make sure your units behaves with proper decorum. You say you've matured, but I've heard plenty of stories about your unit's Monument antics from Major Crystal. This isn't a joyride - it's a combined investigative and search & recovery mission held jointly with a somewhat less than friendly non-allied state."

"Understood, sir;" Dana replied, somewhat ticked at her old friend/rival bringing up the past to Scott, "but that part of my life seems as far away as Tyrol, now."

As she stood to leave the office, Dana finally gave in to one last bit of curiosity, concerning the Vulcan Division insignia design.

"By the way, what's the odd orbit on our unit insignia? It's not any planet I'm familiar with."

"That, is our namesake, Vulcan."

"I thought Vulcan was a planet in Star Trek?"

"Well, it is, but there's an older usage of the term. I guess you were too busy with Zor to get the 2-minute history lesson on the name of my task force."

"Which is?"

"Back in the 1800s, astronomers kept trying to figure out what was causing perturbations in Mercury's orbit, that physics couldn't understand - pre-Einstein physics, that is, as Einstein explained it. One theory was that there was a planet between Mercury and the sun. The most common name for this planet was Vulcan. A few astronomers even claimed to see one, or even several, Vulcan or Vulcan-like planets, but were unable to replicate their sightings. 20th century conventional wisdom was they either saw nothing, or saw large sunspots."

"So, we're named for sunspots?"

"No; I'm getting to that. Well, by 2007, the Farside Lunar Observatory was up and searching the skies - mainly looking for signs that the former owners of the SDF-1 had tracked it down. But, they also got a lot of work done finding and tracking small objects in deep space. One object was a large planetoid, a little smaller than Ceres, that was approaching the solar system. It wasn't until about the time the SDF-3 launched that it had been tracked enough to determine that it was an orbiting body, not just a straggler from deep space. It had a highly eccentric orbit, that came in higher than the orbital plane of the eight large planets, and it will pass very close to the sun at perihelion in 2096. When that orbit was plotted backward, it was found to have been at the right spot at the right time to be the explanation for at least one set of "Vulcan" sightings that occurred one week in the 1870s. The old astronomers kept looking for it in a near-circular orbit near the sun, but the truth was that the object they saw was already speeding back out of the inner solar system, above the ecliptic, not due back for 220 years."

"And that's what we're named for - why?"

"One reason was I was trying to beat Carpenter and his Mercury force back to Earth. Another was that all the planetary names were already taken, and I didn't like the list of asteroid options on the board. But the main reason was that Vulcan belongs to me."

"Excuse me?"

"It's mine. In 2007, I was allowed to go with my mother on a supply run from Armstrong Base to Farside. While there, they let me sit and look at some of the telescope views - but being a typical pre-teen, that wasn't enough. So, I swung the scope I was viewing through to a different part of the sky. When they found out, five hours later, I was grounded for a month, as I'd ruined a day's work."

"Ouch. What's this have to do with you owning Vulcan?"

"Well, not wanting to totally write off the day's scans, they decided to analyze the recordings of the five hours I'd spent stargazing - and that's when they found cometary planetoid 192-2007-SCF. As its discoverer, sorta, they told me I could name it, once I was old enough to comprehend the idea. I never got the chance before Dolza attacked, and didn't bother to check to see if records of the discovery survived, until 2018. It was when I asked that they went back looking for it, and better plotted its orbit and composition, leading to the correlation with the old sightings. As a result, I told them to go ahead and name it Vulcan, as a tribute to its history. To this day, people still think all the old sightings were hogwash, but I have the satisfaction of knowing better, even if most science teachers don't."

Dana looked at him strangely, like he was trying to pull one on her, and she was on to the scam. "That's the biggest load of crap I ever heard in my life."

"It does sound a bit over the top, doesn't it? But, that's the origin of the Vulcan name - you can check with any observatory with a system object catalog printed 2020 or later. Whether I actually have property rights, that's another question. Really... Now, get out of here. I've got a lunch date with your sister, and I'll be late if I keep hanging around here socializing."

"Yes, sir - the last thing you need is sis mad at you. Hug the girls for me, okay, and tell them their Aunt Dana's thinking of them."

"Sure thing."

"I'm Major Sterling," Dana told the Gloval hangar chief. "The base commander is expecting me, and I need directions to the command section."

"Sure thing; been told to expect you. However, the General's busy in a conference with Emerson right now, so you'll need to see his wife."

"His wife?"

"Well, technically, she's also our XO. Take that corridor till it hits the atrium, the take an elevator to sub-level four. The receptionist can help you on from there."

Dana went down the large hallway, drawing stares from most of the people she passed. She then remembered that both Gloval and Tisiphone had populations that were Zentraedi in majority, and after the latter's evacuation here, she was now in the largest community of her mother's people left on Earth. She was also amazed by the number of children in the atrium, most obviously of Zentraedi ancestry. She had always thought that she and Noel were the only ones left, prior to the SDF-3 launch at least, yet some of the children appeared to be as old as twelve or thirteen. Zand evidently was ignorant of these children as well, as he had mentioned in their final confrontation how she and Noel were the only cross-breeds on Earth.

Others, adults, seemed to look strangely familiar to her; but she didn't have time to stop and ask, nor was she willing to use her newfound powers in such a shallow manner, just to satisfy her curiosity. The crowd seemed to part for her as she reached the elevator, and found herself alone in the elevator when she boarded it, as if the others were purposefully waiting to allow her an express descent. It was really starting to bother her, when she stepped out of the elevator on the command level, in a lobby that, from its decor, could have easily been an office on the SDF-1, or even the military offices located on Macross Island before that ship's fateful launch.

"Excuse me; I'm Major Sterling, and I-"

"You've been expected, Major," the civilian receptionist replied, cutting her off. "The Captain's office is down the hall to your right, last door."

"Thank you."

Dana walked briskly to the last door, hoping it would take her out of this feeling of being in a Twilight Zone episode, knocking on the open door before entering. No such luck - what she could see of the office made the feelings of strangeness even stronger. The office was sparsely furnished, the few decorations she could see being a high-detail 1/1000 scale model of the SDF-1 in Battle mode, and a life-size bronze bust of Henry Gloval. The chair at the desk was turned away from the door, to where Dana could not see its occupant.

"Come in, and have a seat," a strangely familiar voice called to her from the chair. Dana complied, and as she sat down, the executive chair swivelled around, and Dana found herself looking into the face of someone she'd long thought dead.

"Claudia?" Dana said, in disbelief. "But, you died on the SDF-1..."

"I sure did," Claudia confirmed. "But, back in 2018, your sister managed to clone me, somehow. She also cloned Roy, Sammy, Vanessa and Kim. I'm surprised Marie and Scott never told you, after their return, or when we had to evacuate Tisiphone. For that matter, I'm surprised Bowie and Noel didn't tell you, as we met them on their honeymoons."

"This is so confusing..."

"Imagine how we felt, stepping out of a cloning chamber, to find we'd been dead four or more years. On top of that, one of the integral parts of the cloning process is that the residual memory recall process is still a mystery - be it some sort of genetic memory, or even a residue from the soul staying tied with the genetic sample like a ghost. Having been in cryonic storage, the scans Marie made of our brains had a lot of holes, and we lost much of our older memories in the process. A precious few of them have slowly re-emerged over time. Of course, in the time since, we've added a lot of new memories we would have never had, otherwise."

"I wonder if that device that the Masters hooked Zor into would have helped? It brought back his previous incarnation's memories, but we destroyed it in rescuing him."

"I'll have to ask Roy to speak with Cabell about that machine, then, the next time he sends in a report to Rick and Emil."

"Do my parents or anyone else know about your return?"

"Just Rick and Dr. Lang officially know, among the REF still at Tyrol. Marie tried to give Roy and me as an engagement present to Rick and Lisa, but Scott was on the ball, and spotted us before anyone but Rick saw us. Since then, we've decided to keep a low profile, for our own safety, and to keep people from going crazy about the ability to clone lost relatives. But, enough about that. Roy and I have been watching you and Bowie ever since the Masters showed up during your graduation, through official broadcasts and intercepted military communications. It really threw us when it was reported that your entire squad had appeared to have deserted, the last day of the war."

"We did what we had to do, to save as many people as possible."

"I know; Bowie explained it to us at Tisiphone. But, at the time, we had to go on what we heard on the command channels, and with what Dr. Cochran told us."

"I thought I recognized him in the lobby. How did he get here? Last I heard, he'd disappeared under mysterious circumstances from Monument."

"Noel, evidently acting on some of the information and abilities Karen had transferred to her, snatched him from certain death at the hand's of Zand's inner circle, and teleported him to Tisiphone. She doesn't even remember doing it, but Miles does."

The door opened behind Dana, and Roy came into the office. He went to the desk, kissed his wife, and turned to face Dana.

"So, you're Max's daughter, the infamous Dana Sterling."

"Yes, sir - though I'm not so sure about the 'infamous' part."

"I never have had the opportunity to meet your mother; after all, it was one of her first encounters with Skull Squadron that resulted in my untimely demise. That was one hell of a sortie."

So I've been told. It was Mom wanting revenge for her defeat at Dad's hands that led to her Micronization, and eventually to my birth. But, back to the business I was sent here for. What's the mission plan?"

"You're to rendezvous with your Soviet counterparts near the ruins of Cairo, in the old Pyramid tourist show amphitheater complex at Giza. From there, you are to proceed back through the Sinai, and up through old Israel. Most of the disappearances have taken place in the Jordan River valley, so your search pattern will begin at the south end of the Dead Sea, and work its way north to the upper feeders of the Sea of Galilee, in a ten kilometer band west of the river and seas, then back south in a similar band on the east bank. The combined force is to report in every four hours, with each team taking half the reports. Yours will be at midnight, 0800 and 1600; the Soviets at 0400, 1200 and 2000. Both sets of reports will be received by both sides simultaneously, and the frequency will be monitored at all times by both, in case of emergencies and important discoveries that can't wait for a regular report."

"Have my subordinates been informed of the mission details, or are you leaving that to me?"

"Oh, they're being briefed right now; the primary reason we decided to brief you separately was personal." Roy hit the 'send' button on the intercom. "You can come in now, boys."

"Who?"

"Well, I'll let you see for yourself."

A side door opened, and three couples and a half-dozen children poured into the room. Dana's eyes lit up, as she recognized her former babysitters.

"Surprise, Dana!" Rico, Bron and Konda shouted.

"I-I..." Dana stuttered, then ran to them, crying. "I thought you guys were dead, too!"

"We're sorry we had to leave like that," Rico said, hugging her. "But we were sick, with a degenerative disease that resulted from a system problem in our original micronization, and it took Karen, your sister and these three ladies to convince us to undergo treatment."

"You never said goodbye to me. What happened?"

"Your sister and Karen happened," Konda answered. "They grabbed us from the Hunter wedding reception, told us who they really were, and teleported us to Tisiphone for treatment. To cover it, they arranged for a shuttle of people destined for Tisiphone to be lost in reentry, but in reality, everyone made it to ground safe, and the empty shuttle crashed into the sea in the trench off Chile."

"I see you guys have been busy," Dana said, looking at the children.

"Cochran told us that the reason most Zentraedi never had children, was that Zand had arranged to a chemical to be included in the supplement most of us took to ward off some of the detrimental effects of micronization. It turns out that the symptoms were real only for a few of us, like ourselves, and false positives caused by another chemical's illegal use, to get the Zentraedi interested in taking the supplement. It turns out that the chemical in question interacted with the Protoculture traces in our systems, to act as a fertility suppressant in both male and female Zentraedi. Once away from the supplement, our reproductive systems returned to human normal."

"Zand's dead, now - well, effectively, he is." Dana's voice dropped to a whisper with the last part.

"What happened to him?"

"There's an old Earth saying; 'Be careful what you wish for - you just may get it'. At the darkest point of my life, when I thought both Zor and Noel dead, Zand came and tried to suck the very life out of me, in order to gain the powers that were my birthright, powers similar to Karen and Noel's. I don't know whether it was me, Polly, the Protoculture transmutation into the flowers, or a combination of these; but something made his transformation go horribly wrong, and he was transmuted into a gigantic Invid Flower of Life.

"It also had a major effect on me. I went back to him, a week later, after I'd gotten accustomed to my awakening powers. The change had driven him insane, even more than he had been before. I had to break my mental contact with him after only a few seconds. What had happened to him, I wouldn't have wished on anyone; especially when I think about what will happen to him when the Invid arrive. Before, I would have said he deserved such a fate. Now, I can't help but to pity him."

"It shows how much you've matured into a wise person," Bron said in confirmation. "Without compassion, we are nothing. But enough about past evils; let's talk about you, and our families."

And the day was spent catching up on the events of the last ten years, along with introducing the Zentraedi to their "creator", Zor. The mission wouldn't be leaving until tomorrow; indeed, the only reason was sent to Gloval a day early, and hundreds of kilometers out of the way, was to allow them to have this day off. Alex and Noel spent a little time with Dana and her reunion party, then went off with Noel's "Aunt Nyra", who was eager to find out as much as she could about her clone-sister's daughters. John and Jen, not having anything else to do, borrowed a couple camels from the Desert Squad stables and played "Arabian Nights" for a while, not coming back in until long after darkness had set in, and with sand in more than just their shoes. Some things never change...

**Chapter Seven:**

Freeman's Second Law of Guerilla Warfare: "The two biggest myths in warfare are 'fool-proof battle plans' and 'safety/superiority in numbers'." - Karen Freeman, The Freedom Fighter's Handbook

**18 November 2030**

They reached the rendezvous point at noon, and had lunch with their Soviet counterparts. The Soviets were driving their most versatile mecha, a Battloid designed to handle both reconnaissance and heavy fire support roles, while still competent as a front-line mecha. While there was some good-natured jabbing back and forth over the different sizes of their mecha (and the sexual implications), both realized that each mecha had their own strengths and weaknesses.

"Is this your first time in the deadlands?" the Soviet squad leader, Dimitri Andreyev, asked Dana in heavily accented English, making conversation along the trip.

"Yes, it is. So, this is where the worst fighting of the Global War occurred?"

"It was a great tragedy; people killing each other over religion. The greatest tragedy of all was that it was the destruction of a city that was holy to both that triggered the conflict, an accident that caused the only nuclear conflict in the entire war."

"An accident? I never heard that before."

"It was my final project at Gorbachev Academy, to research the destruction of Jerusalem as my graduate thesis. It's always been a mystery why the city, holy to both Jews and Muslims, would be the first city destroyed. My first trip to the ruins, I determined the blast point; it went off at ground level, in the predominantly Muslim section."

"What did you do then? Do research on the area?"

"Da. I secured permission to study the old Soviet and Neasian files stored in the secure vaults under Moscva. The city was destroyed, but the vaults survived, and contain many, many dirty secrets from the end of the century. I looked in the KGB files; the _Komitet_ sponsored many Islamic terrorist groups in its existence, before one faction split off to lead the coup that fragmented the Commonwealth and began the civil war that eventually engulfed the world."

"Did you find what you suspected?"

"I did, indeed. After I overlaid a map of the city over the blast pictures, I narrowed the address to one of three houses. One was a safe house for one of the known KGB-backed groups. It was believed that the group had stolen nuclear material from Iraq, that Hussein had tried to hide from the UN. Of course, Hussein couldn't tell anyone that he lost material he wasn't supposed to have. After the civil war had become a global one, due to the west moving in to protect Eastern Europe and aid the Russian Federation in Europe, and to defend Japan and Australia in the Pacific, little attention was paid to the Middle East. The Neasian Alliance chose to capitalize on this, and take away their enemy's primary oil supply. The captured Neasian records indicate payments to that terrorist group in 1997 and 1998, to do something to destabilize the region. My guess, is something went wrong."

"It did have its intended effect, so how do you know something went wrong?"

"The remainder of the money, in its Swiss accounts, never was claimed by the group. So, it would appear they died in the explosion. Plus, the group would have never considered Jerusalem a valid target. Most likely, they were assembling the device for use against Tel Aviv, but it was accidentally set off at the assembly site. The result was that Israel wasn't as destabilized as was hoped, it used its own nuclear weapons on Libya, Iraq and Iran, and were responded to in kind, mostly with devices bought or stolen from the third fraction of the old Soviet, the central republics that had intended to stay neutral in the war. The Arabian states and Egypt were actually working in disaster relief in the Jerusalem ruins when the war went nuclear, and lost several thousand people, including a Saudi prince, to the counterstrikes against Israel. As a result, they sided with Israel in the conflict, and when the fallout cleared, all the major cities between Algeria and Pakistan were gone, and Pakistan had its own problems with its war with India. The Neasians had hoped for a longer, protracted conventional war there, not a month-long nuclear massacre. Very tragic, but it scared the major combatants back from the brink of nuclear war for over a year, by which time the SDF-1 crashed to Earth."

"Incredible; that is very sad. But had it not happened, we'd have never been born, and the SDF-1 would have probably arrived to a dead world."

"Sorry to interrupt your history lesson, Dana," Alex broke in, "but we're approaching the pass leading down into the rift. I'm reporting in our location now, because line of sight gets tricky until we get down to the water level."

"Keep your eyes open; this is where one patrol from each of our forces made their last contact with their superiors. Not even ration wrappers were ever found of them."

"Thanks a lot, Major," John commented. "That really cheers me up."

"But, remember, those patrols were of two mecha each - we have an even doz-."

Suddenly, missiles and large-caliber shells streaked into their formation, destroying 2 of the heavy Battloids, and a third (Dimitri's) dropping from having its legs and hip area shattered.

"Dimitri!" Dana called, going into armor mode with her Cyclone.

"I'll live, Sterling - but my mech's dead. Get the zvoloches for me."

However, the offending parties were nowhere to be seen, except for the occasional flash of green from crevices between boulders. The gunfire seemed mainly to serve to distract them from incoming missile fire from other attackers, but by the time they'd realized that, the Battloids were all down, and attention turned to the Cyclones, whose mobility was limited by the narrow pass and downed Battloids. John and Jen went down first, blown off their bikes and out cold by a missile volley.

Dana, Zor, Alex and Noel were arranged in a circle, their missiles already expended in an effort to silence some of the guns, and they were down to their Cyclones' pulse rifles. Then, another volley of missiles struck - not them, but the cliff behind them, catching them off-guard. Dust filled the air, as Dana heard Noel scream. She looked back, and saw Alex and Noel half-buried, Noel having tried unsuccessfully to grab her husband and teleport them out of harm's way.

"Zor! We've got to make it to higher ground. Jump for the ridge! Zor?" she turned back in his direction, to see him slump to the ground, the Cyclone's windscreen shot away from its normal Battle Armor position shielding the back of the neck, and there were visible cracks in the back of the helmet from the partially deflected impact. "Zor!" She wasn't so distracted by this last turn of events that she didn't see the last missile coming, until it was a split-second away, and she barely had enough time to activate her CADS and block it, but the explosion at arms' length still blasted her into unconsciousness.

"Alex, Come in! Alex! Repeat your message!" Scott shouted into the mike. Alex had been in the middle of reporting his location when the attack occurred, and the link to the satellite system was broken when Alex had to drop the saddlebags to transform.

"Scott, what is it?" Marie asked, having entered the sit room just as Alex was cut off.

"We've lost them, Marie. We've lost them all."

Dimitri crawled out of his crippled Battloid, after something rolled it over onto its chest. At first, he thought one of his squad had come to his rescue, but his first view of the mecha that ripped out the entry hatch dispelled that false hope. The mecha standing over him was taller than the Battloids, green with bulging shoulders with exposed missile tubes. One hand held the hatch, the other a disc-shaped tri-barrelled weapon in its three-fingered hand. Two other similarly equipped mecha flanked it, along with three smaller, more humanoid mecha with the same hand weapons.

"I-I give up?" Dimitri stuttered what little Zentraedi he remembered, hoping he'd said it correctly.

"Into the cage," it replied in a tinny Russian, as it motioned to a cage where the Cycloners, 4 still in their mecha, were already piled. At first, he didn't see any of his men, but eventually 3 more were pried from their mecha, unconscious. Two others were dead, blown up in their mecha. The mecha then lifted off, flying down to the edge of the water next to a huge plastic bowl. the cage was lowered into the bowl, and the mecha pilot spoke again.

"Open their helmets."

"Why should I?"

"Do it or you all die.", it replied, pointing its gun at him. He went around slowly, stopping only to open each face plate, except for Zor, whose helmet he removed, and bandaged his head.

"They're open," he yelled, only to see one of the mecha's missile ports launch a missile into the bowl, filling the bowl with a gas that quickly sent him reeling into nothingness.

**Chapter Eight:**

"Sure you are - and I'm the Invid Regent" - Anonymous Tiresian guard clone

"Zor!" Dana screamed, waking up in a sweat. She had just seen him die in the blast that destroyed the Masters' flagship, and this time, Noel was nowhere around to save him - indeed, in the nightmare, she hadn't existed at all. Slowly, she started to remember what had happened in the mountain pass. "Zor, where are you?" She asked in the darkness.

"He's over here, Sterling," Dimitri replied in a whisper. "Welcome back from the dead."

"Where are we?"

"Captured. Six mecha picked us up. Three of them were those monsters like your mother used to fly, and the three smaller ones were green, with bug-eyes. They were using some sort of strange gun, that looked like a chemical barrel with handles and spokes coming out for the gun barrels."

"Hmmm. did the smaller ones have some sort of hose or conduit on their outside?"

"One big one, from chest to head."

"That confirms it - Bioroids. Do you know if we actually managed to take any of them out before we went down?"

"At least three, I believe. There were three others on the outside or the cage, earlier, that appeared to be wearing some sort of skin-tight uniform. They looked hurt, but not much worse than the rest of you. I woke up as they where hauling us down to the shoreline. I watched them taking you out of the cage, one at a time, and removing you from your mecha before laying you out in this bowl."

"Bowl? Cage?"

"When they captured us, they took all of us, and put us in a cage - I was the only one conscious at the time. They had me remove your helmets. They then gassed us, knocking me out, and hit the rest of you with the gas, to make sure you weren't faking it as well. When they got us to the shore, there were what appeared to be two large plastic bowls with lids. After stripping us down to our uniforms, they used their mecha to put us in one, and the three outside passengers climbed into the other. They put the lids on after that, but at least left us with an air bottle."

"If they took us to the shore, where are we?"

"The Dead Sea, I believe. I heard water sounds on the trip here, then what sounded like an airlock cycling. But, before they closed the lid, I could see there were cliffs on the other side of the water, which meant they didn't take us to the Mediterranean. The lake's deeper now than it was before the Zentraedi came, so it could conceivably hide a small ship. In fact, a Zentraedi ship could be the reason why the water level first rose, before the climate shift. The geography classes I had in school attributed to the huge earthquakes that hit the region when the Zentraedi attacked."

"And nobody thought to look before? Oh, great. They'll never find us down here, then."

"I'm sorry that I can't disagree with you on that."

"Where did they put Zor?"

"They laid us out in a circle - my squad's survivors are over here with me. I believe they put Zor to your right, and the Tylers beyond him. Be careful - his helmet was grazed by a shell, and he might have some damage to his neck as a result. I managed to get them to let me bandage him before they gassed us, so his head should be stabilized from the makeshift brace I put on."

"How thoroughly did they search us?"

"They took any obvious weapons on us, and anything that might be a radio. Beyond that, I can't be sure of anything they might have taken off the rest of you."

"Are any of the others hurt badly?"

"A couple of my men have internal injuries, I believe. If we can get them medical care in the next day or so, they should recover, but beyond that it will be questionable. The worst injuries, other than Zor's, among your team are at most concussions and sprains. But, I've only got field medical training - I'm no doctor."

"Alex is. If we can get him awake, he might be able to help us with the others." Dana felt her way around Zor, finding herself at Alex's feet. She made her way up to his head, and shook him by the shoulder. "Alex, wake up!"

"Wha-" Alex sat up quickly, almost bumping heads with Dana in his haste. He futilely tried to adjust his eyes to the total darkness. "What happened? Where are we?"

"We've been captured, and we're not one-hundred-percent certain where we're at. Dimitri and I thought it would be best to wake you first, and let you try waking the others. We're not sure what injuries they might have. Most importantly, you need to check Zor - his helmet shattered in the back from a glancing blow from a Bioroid cannon."

"Bioroids? Then where did the missiles come from?"

"Courtesy of three Queadlun-rau suits, according to Dimitri. He was the only one left standing when we were captured. Our attackers appeared to be three of them, plus at least six green Bioroids - we managed to turn three of the latter into ground-pounders. If we took out any more, we must have killed them."

"They got our armor - but did they search us?"

"To an extent, but I wasn't really carrying anything in my uniform under the armor, so I can't vouch for how good a job they did."

"I am the same," Dimitri added.

"Let's see... they didn't search us!"

"What have you got?"

"A flashlight."

"A flashlight? You've got to be kidding. Where do you have room for a flashlight in that uniform, or should I even ask?"

Alex clicked it on, and a narrow beam of light appeared. "It's part of a key chain; a wedding gift from Louie, before he left for Tyrol. It's about the size of a pen-light, but the other half of the gift was another key chain for Noel, that is an attachment I can snap on to the light to make it about the size of a small conventional flashlight." Alex used the light to find Noel, and shook her. "Noel, time to wake up..."

"I'm not in the mood, Alex..." she moaned, rolling over to her side, away from the light.

"FRONT AND CENTER, LIEUTENANT!" Dana shouted at her cousin, waking her up, as well as half the remaining prisoners.

"What the- Oh, Dana, I'm sorry. I guess I was having a bad dream. Don't tell me - let me see what's going on." She touched Dana's forehead with her hand, and reviewed the last few minutes. "Okay; we're prisoners of Bioroids and Zentraedi, and we're sealed in a giant bowl. Anyone come up with any ideas on how we're going to escape?"

"How did she know?" Dimitri asked.

"She's a telepath;" Alex answered. "So's Dana, to a much lesser extent. Using their powers puts a great deal of strain on them - especially Dana, so she generally ignores that she's even got the ability. Noel, can I have your key chain?"

"Here. We could use some more light in here."

Alex screwed the attachment onto the penlight, and turned the flashlight back on. Plastic walls were about ten feet away in each direction, and both the floor and the ceiling were made of the same opaque brown material.

"My God," Dana muttered to herself. "We really ARE in a giant bowl."

"It's an old Zentraedi emergency ration tub," Noel replied, drawing on memories she'd inherited from Kayra and Karen. "The were used to store extra nutrient paste in case the ship's recycler/dispenser unit sustained battle damage. The food was also a black-market commodity among the crew, so every ship had literally tons more of them than was mandated by fleet regulation - that's how come there was such a thing as overweight Zentraedi, even before they started eating Earth foods. After the war, many of the ones salvaged on Earth and used to feed people during the years before food crops became plentiful again were modified and reused as shelters during the rebuilding of the cities. The RDF used salvaged tubs for everything from science stations on the moon to makeshift emergency evacuation pods, to be carried to safety by mecha from ships."

"From what Dimitri saw, that's what they did here as well, though they're probably using this as a cell for us as well, since it's doubtful that any vessel they'd have taken us to would have human-sized detention facilities. Besides the three clones, they probably had all the gear they removed from us in the other bowl."

"Major, how can we be sure we're aboard a ship?" John asked. "And even if we are, what kind of ship can it be?"

"We're in a Zentraedi ship, most likely. The bowl seems to indicate that. And their power armor units would also seem to indicate that the ship was originally part of Azonia's command, so that at the largest, it would be three kilometers long - at the shortest, one of the 750-meter scout ships like the _Korra'ti_ or _Kramer_. Without getting out of this bowl, there's no use speculating. Alex, how's Zor?"

"Noel's helped me with him. Thanks to her healing talents, it should be safe to wake him now, and she can go over and see what she can do to help our two Russian friends."

"Zor?"

"Dana?"

"I'm here, Zor. How do you feel?"

"A little dizzy, and my head is pounding. What happened to me?"

"One of your former brothers-in-arms tried to give you a head-ectomy with his weapon drum, and nearly succeeded."

"Bioroids, huh? What color were they?"

"Green. That's the color of junior-level free-thinking clones, isn't it?"

"Yes. I doubt that blues, even with an active master, could have pulled of that sort of ambush."

"They were assisted by female Zentraedi mecha."

"Highly unusual. One would think that Zentraedi would have the same problem dealing with Tyroleans as they do with Terran humans, but evidently, that's not the case."

Suddenly, the bowl shook as the lid was unsealed and removed.

"We have come to take you to the council," a voice came from the power armor holding the lid, as a dozen Tyrolean guard types pointed rifles at down at them from a neighboring crate. "Here is the cage. Enter the cage, and you will not be harmed." With that, a large diver's cage, evidently salvaged from some long-forgotten Mediterranean port, was lowered into the bowl.

"I demand you release us!" Zor yelled to the guards. "I am Zor Prime, creator of the Protoculture. You have no right to treat me in such a manner."

"What's he doing?" Dimitri asked. "Has he lost his mind?"

"I think he's trying to pull rank - after all, he IS exactly who he claims to be," Alex whispered back. "The question is, will they actually recognize it as the truth?"

"You're Zor, huh?" One of the guards replied, to the quite uncharacteristic snickers of some of the other guards. "Zor is dead. He died years ago, and his last clone died in the Masters' command ship, months ago. You insult our intelligence, Micronian."

"Just do as they say, Zor," Dana whispered. "Maybe their 'council' might be more inclined to listen to you."

"Fine. Let us be on our way, then. I am anxious to see what kind of government the clones have chosen, now that the Masters are dead." He stepped into the cage first, followed by the others. As they rose out of the bowl, they saw an immense room around them.

"Well, Dana," Alex commented, "it looks like you were right. This is a Zentraedi ship - or at least it was. Look over there." He pointed to a group of Bioroids working on some sort of heavy equipment.

"What are they doing?" One of Dimitri's men asked.

"It looks like repairs to the engine," Noel replied. "Either they are trying to return home, or they plan to pull a Khyron. After yesterday's welcoming committee, I'd say the odds are about even for either."

"But, if it's the latter, against who?"

"Good question. I guess we'll be finding out in a few minutes."

**Chapter Nine:**

"Human nature is a strange thing - and when I say human, it applies equally to humans, Zentraedi, Tyroleans, and even the Invid who took human form. Philosophers to the contrary, one has to actively work at or forced into being logical, or be swept up by the moment. Sometimes this is bad, such as in a riot. Other times, when the logic isn't really so logical at all (for example, the "logical" conditioning given to Zentraedi and Tyrolean clones to accept a paradigm that was inherently against human nature), such a breakthrough can be a welcome thing, if not a lifesaver. One of the more interesting aspects of this is that, when one's paradigm is sufficiently shaken, it is often easier to go from hatred to friendship (or vice-versa) in a sudden shift, than from a gradual change in one's point of view. All one has to look at in our own history are Sera and myself, or the Sterlings, or even Exedore and Breetai's embrace of their own humanity in the weeks following the Sterling wedding, and their alliance with Earth."

- Lance Belmont, introduction to Why We Fought (and sometimes didn't): What REALLY won the Robotech Wars, a textbook on 21st Century history, LGSA Academy Press, New Monument, 2042.

"So, you are the latest group of Micronians to come searching for us. Can you not just leave us alone?" The voice came from a floating platform that was slowly descending from what had been the command bubble of the Zentraedi scout ship.

"We - leave you alone?" Dimitri snarled. We were not looking for you, or a fight with you, but you've killed at least two of my countrymen, not counting the ones we were searching for."

"Silence! Your planet has caused the near-death of our once-proud race. You will not kill any more of us."

"Your race is our race!" Noel shouted back. "Your ancestors came from this world thousands of years ago. You call us Micronians, as if we're so much beneath you - but, who defeated your Zentraedi? who destroyed your fleet?" Noel paused, then continued with a trump card... "And, who drove the Invid from your homeworld, after you abandoned it and its people to make the mad rush here?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Surely you did not think that the Invid would sit by quietly, when you abandoned their only potential sources for new food and power to go chasing after Zor's ship - especially after that ship's new owners destroyed your Zentraedi fleet, that had for so long kept the Invid on the run. After you left, the Regent's forces swept through your inner empire like a fire through a parched field. After the Zentraedi were defeated, our leaders built a ship based on Zor's design, and went looking for the Masters, to try to sue for peace - what they found at Tyrol was a world nearly destroyed by the Invid. My parents, and the rest of the Robotech Expeditionary Force, spent the last ten years liberating the worlds you abandoned from the Invid, killing the Invid Regent along the way. Were you to go home, you'd find we puny 'Micronians' even there."

"Preposterous!" The speaker had finally floated down into view, a tall, thin man that appeared to be in his late thirties or early forties - the typical appearance of a scientist clone.

"Really? You actually believe that a few hundred Bioroids scattered between Tyrol, Karbarra and Garuda could stand against the Invid? They lasted only hours on Tyrol, defected to join the natives on Garuda, and were evicted by the Karbarrans long before the Invid arrived."

"You seem to know much about my people - more than your leadership did when we arrived. How is this?"

"Since we defeated the Masters on the far side of this world, the REF has sent ships back to Earth. They have carried the news of the Regent's death, and the probability that the Regis is leading the rest of the Invid here. This is especially important to myself, and my cousin here, as the Invid would hardly be disposed to looking kindly on us, being half-Zentraedi. Then again, you never expected the subjects of your grand genetic experiment to reproduce, did you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You know full well what I'm talking about - we found it in Zor's notes, and confirmed it when talking to Cabell on Tyrol. The "Great Plan" the Elders had, to create a perfect society. The Zentraedi were created by combining the citizens' genetic material, to determine which citizens would be fit to continue as clones, then to give birth to the ultimate members of your race."

"Cabell still lives?"

"Yes, though it was a close thing. He and his assistant were on the run from the Invid when the REF arrived, and rescued them. It's amazing that none of your superiors ever realized his assistant was an unauthorized clone of Zor. Rem was as vital in the defeat of the Regent as Zor Prime here was in defeating your Masters over Monument City."

"You have beaten us utterly, then. Why do you still harass us? Do you wish us destroyed utterly for what we have done?"

Dana took over for her cousin at this point.

"You keep acting as if we knew you were here. We didn't. In fact, we had no idea there were any of your forces over this part of the planet. How did you get here?"

"We were a shipload of clones, being sent to attack your city far north of here like the outlying towns of your western stronghold were attacked, in that final day of the war. We had engine difficulties, from damage inflicted by your space fleet, and crashed into this inland sea. We would have died then, had it not been for the proximity of this vessel. Our escort Bioroids helped us aboard, and we debarked here, only to find out that you had been victorious in the war. We set out to rebuild and repair here, but we began to run low on supplies, and had to start sending out search parties looking for food and repair parts for this old ship. Those parties were attacked by your people, and as a result, found very little. Indeed, we had to refit three of the Zentraedi mecha left here for our use, as a result of losses your people inflicted. We have lost so much time as a result, that we are unlikely to make the repairs needed before we starve. You are our last hope - we thought by capturing one of your patrols, we could ransom you for more supplies, as the last of our reserves will be gone within the week."

"We would have never even suspected you being here, had your patrols and ours not clashed. You see, you're located along the border of two factions of Terrans. Dimitri and his three men, who were in the big mecha, are from the nation to the north, which stayed out of the war; while the rest of us are survivors of the war with your leadership. We originally thought each others' side were responsible for the disappearances, but it became clear that a third party was involved, which resulted in the mixed group you captured. If anything, we suspected humans or Zentraedi that had turned into bandits, not survivors of the recent war. We recently sent the survivors from the Masters' flagship back to Tyrol, under the leadership of the Muse triumvirate, which aided us in the defeat of the Masters. I'm sure we could do the same for you."

"How can we be sure you are speaking truthfully? After all, you could just be trying to find a means of escape."

"Would you trust my word, over those of these two half-Zentraedi?" Zor said, stepping forward. "I meant what I told your guards earlier. I am Zor Prime, the Masters' last Zor-clone, that they sent as a spy to infiltrate the Terran military. Despite what you were told of my original's life, he was NEVER a willing participant in the Masters' empire building, or in any of their other schemes. They killed his family; they killed his friends; they killed the one person in the universe he was unwilling to live without, then denied him the chance to bring her back for himself, as they had other uses in mind for her clones, that they could not entrust to him.

"In the last week of the war, they forced me to remember everything they had done to me in my previous life, to have me remember the means of accessing the hidden stores of Protoculture, so they could steal it from my mind. They were going to kill me, after doing so, but these Terrans risked their lives to rescue me. After then, all I could think about was vengeance. In the final battle, after all hope of victory seemed lost by the Terrans, Dana and I alone ended the war. I killed the Masters, as they had killed me, denying them their victory on Earth. For years, they lifted me up, almost as a god, to be idolized by both you and the Zentraedi - a final insult, to flaunt their victory over my ideals after my original death. My destruction of their quest for power, on the verge of their victory, was a fitting retribution for their crimes against me.

"I almost died after that - so consumed with grief and the release of the accumulated guilt over what had been done in my name falsely, that I chose to die by destroying the Masters' ship in what would be a vain attempt to destroy the flowers, to prevent the Invid from coming. However, these two women would not let me, one by nearly dying herself in the rescue of me from the exploding ship, the other staying by my side during my recovery, convincing me that I had something to live for, and that the past was truly gone, and properly avenged.

"I live now for myself, and for Dana. I have made my peace with the clones of my original love, as they, like I, love others in our new lives. In a strange irony, I know now that both Dana's mother and Noel's were partially created from the original Musica's genetics, as well. And, it may be that what my original sensed in the original Musica was reborn more in her granddaughters, than in her clones, because Noel has been the best friend, and Dana the love, for me that their grandmother had been both for my original. But, I still care for the children of the Masters' misuse of Zor's works, as like myself, they had no choice in becoming what they have. Like myself, they must be given the chance to discover their true selves, and put their past behind them. For that reason, I promise you that I will help you return home to Tyrol, away from the danger of the approaching Invid."

"I find your words moving, but I still have a little difficulty in believing that you are who you say you are. If you are Zor, and have truly remembered things that your original knew - things you would not have known as simply a Bioroid pilot - then you should be able to prove it, by telling me something that only someone of our scientist caste would know."

Dana cut off Zor before he could reply. "If you have any scanning equipment, you can probably scan his mind for what's left of the neurosensor the Masters planted in his brain, but a simple demonstration by my cousin should do better than any words from Zor himself."

" Dana, what are you up to? " Noel asked telepathically.

" I figure it's a trick question - after all, Zor wasn't really part of the scientist clone caste, even in his original life's non-clone equivalent of it - that's why all the other free-thinking scientists like him were killed by the Masters as potential threats, or, in the case of Cabell, kept around but isolated, to have them attempt to duplicate Zor's work, since the Science Master clones could not. "

" So, what is it you want me to do? "

"What can she show me?" The Science Master asked. "As you already know, we have no means to scan for a device here, that would be invisible to Zentraedi or Micronian sensors."

" Noel, telekinese the fool off the platform and down here to us. "

" what will that prove? "

" Remember, Zor thought our powers, which are much like those of the Garudans, Haydonites and Perytonians, were possible for humans through Protoculture - he never lived long enough to see it done, but we're the proof. "

" Dana, you're a genius. "

" Not on your level, but I try harder. " Dana then switched back to voice, from her telepathic conversation with Noel. "The power of Protoculture; the powers that Zor theorized long ago." Dana motioned to Noel, who put the plan (and the clone) into motion.

"What - what is happening to me?" he yelped, as he slowly rose from the platform, was put through a series of tumbles to further disorient him, then set down on his feet in front of Zor Prime.

"A small example of my powers," Noel replied. "Do you believe us now?"

"Most definitely! That was incredible."

"We can and will help you; I meant everything I said earlier," Zor stated, grasping the clone on the shoulder, to steady him. "What do you need, besides food, to make your repairs?"

"Tools, and replacement parts for the ship's recycling system. If we had the proper tools before, we could have fabricated the parts to bring the nutrient dispenser back into operation, but we are now too short on time to do so, and would need actual replacement parts for it, and the tools to install them."

"And, how are the engines?"

"We never bothered to look, after finding out that the navigation systems were destroyed."

"I'm sure we can handle both those problems, and help with any engine repairs."

"How?"

"The humans have refitted two of these vessels in the past, and stripped down many others for use in building their own fleets. Any parts those ships cannot spare, we'll have sent here from the Factory Satellite that Dana's parents and Breetai captured almost twenty years ago."

"So, that's what happened to it - there had been talk of using it to shorten our trip, at the risk of exposing Reno's fleet to the true nature of the Masters, but it disappeared before the Elders and Masters could make a decision to whether the risk would have been worth it. Instead, they contacted Khyron, who never arrived at the rendezvous point."

"Khyron let revenge consume him, and he died in what was, in effect, a suicide attack that destroyed Zor's ship, and kept the Terrans from finding the hidden matrix. So, in his disobedience, he still managed to keep the Terrans from seizing the full extent of Zor's gift as their own, and allowing the Masters to come as close to victory as they came."

"Another irony in a series of many, it seems. But, as you said, that is the past. How can we ever be able to thank you for your help?"

"Get out of here before the Invid arrive. That will be reward enough."

"Fortress Gloval, this is Sword Two," Alex spoke into the Zentraedi-scaled comm-screen in the command bubble. "Sorry for the delay, but we had to iron out a little misunderstanding."

"Alex, where the hell are you?" Scott replied. "We brought a quarter of our forces up here to start looking for you, and by the time we get set up, you call in out of nowhere."

"Well, 'hell' and 'nowhere' might be pretty close to the truth, Colonel. We're in an old Zentraedi ship that ditched in the Dead Sea's deep end back in 2011."

"How did you end up there? Last we heard, you were under fire."

"Well, for now, let's just leave it as a request to reimplement 'Long Distance Voyager'. The ship's drive systems are repairable, with time and parts, but not much else is, and its current tenants need food and spare parts to do the repairs."

"Did you take any casualties in the 'misunderstanding'?"

"The Soviet squad lost two men, and everyone else received injuries, but the only potential life-threatening ones were prevented from reaching that level through Noel and Dana's gifts, and they were too tired afterward, and after using their abilities to make inroads with our captors, to try telepathy to contact you. None of the people we were looking for are alive, by the way. The 'locals' were terrified that the patrols were looking for them, and their foraging parties terminated them in combat before they could get close enough to possibly discover the ship. We were purposefully allowed to get out that distress call, and were attacked with intent of capture, in an attempt to use us as bargaining chips for supplies. We managed to convince them that it wasn't necessary, after all."

"Foraging parties?"

"The ship is full of Tiresians - a troopship full of clones that had been intended for use in human wave attacks on Lillehammer's outskirts, the way they were used in Monument's suburbs, to draw away defense troops from the government buildings. They managed to ditch here when their drives went out from battle damage, and relocate, taking over from their controllers when the Protoculture treatments and mind-control drugs wore off. They only had God-only-knows-how-old Zentraedi emergency rations to survive on, since the war, and had been unsuccessfully trying to find replacement parts to get more than emergency power back up, and to fix the food dispensers. Zor gave me a list of supplies to relay to you, while he toured the ship, for our relief to bring up, if possible."

"What kind of supplies?"

"Food for five hundred people for two weeks, is the most pressing item. They are on rationing here, and are close to starvation, with the remaining food not expected to last past the weekend. Next up, if the _Korra'ti_ or _Kramer_ can get them to you, an assortment of parts from one of the deactivated food dispensers. If not, there should be hundreds of copies of these parts in storage on the Factory Satellite, from the salvage ops that brought in the material for the RDF and Southern Cross fleets. The last thing they'll need is a fold computer, preferably a portable set like what Louie used for his trip to Tyrol. Once it's here, it should be no problem to hook it directly into the drive."

"What do you want us to tell the Soviets? After all, they'd probably like to have that ship."

"Tell them the truth. The weapons are all beyond repair, and they are going to be using anti-grav for most of the navigation out of the atmosphere, as the primary and secondary drives are shot. Why do you think Nyra's crew abandoned the ship in 2011?"

"That was her ship?"

"Yeah - the computer log shows she was first officer - they were trying for a powered landing in the Med, but fell short, and everyone who could literally jumped ship as it started sinking. The clones were lucky that enough partitions and hatches were sealed to prevent that crap that passes for water here from flooding the entire ship, and that the areas that didn't flood were the ones that would have damaged by even hours of immersion. You might want to see what Nyra remembers about the condition of the ship that day."

"Better yet - we'll send her up with the supplies."

**21 November 2030**

"Scott, I have to hand it to those rail gun crews, "Alex said to Scott in his progress report. "The 'package' arrived about twenty hours after I sent you the list, and landed dead-center in the target area. I'm no orbital scientist, but I thought it would have taken at least a week to get here, at least at a speed that wouldn't leave a crater."

"It surprised me, too. But, what happened was that the satellite had just received an unmanned transport package of Protoculture cells a couple days before, that used a strap-on Nichols Drive, and they stuck it in your shipment, and had it fold in at orbital heights. From there, it was just a matter of attaining a proper vector for reentry. It worked out pretty well - the ship gets an extra fold module to take the strain off its primaries, to go with the new computer, and Base Tyrol will get its module back a few weeks ahead of schedule, if the ship launches as planned."

"Nyra told Noel that she'll be going with the ship, at least to orbit. From there, she'll either transfer to the Korra'ti or go on to Tyrol. Any idea what might have brought this on?"

"Actually, I do. Nyra's too uncomfortable around Kayra - one of those 'path not taken' effects, if you ask me, but I'm not the shrink in the family. I can understand that, to some extent. Dana and Marie are different enough not to have anything similar, but Noel and Karen..."

"I've noticed it, too. Noel seems to be intimidated by Karen being so..."

"God-like?"

"Well, that's not exactly how I'd put it, but it does fit. Noel's still coming to terms with her own powers, in light of her quasi-possession by the splinter essence Karen left behind to guard her and Dana. She'd probably feel a lot better if there weren't any residual traces of the Karen personality left in her mind, though for this mission, those traces actually came a little in handy. For the most part, however, she could do without the additional strain on her sanity."

"Have you ever noticed the flip-side of that particular problem?"

"What is that?"

"Karen's never had a stable romantic relationship with anyone her entire life. The closest thing to that she ever had was her involvement with Rem and Janice, and that relationship ended with her bowing out to let that odd couple make a go of it, and not without regrets. She envies Noel's relationship with you, and to extent, Marie's with me. Hopefully, her latest attempt at dating will help her work through her problems."

"Who's the lucky guy? Anyone I know?"

"Would you believe Dante?"

"Angie? I don't believe it. What could those two possibly have in common?"

"Difficulties in communication, from what I hear. Neither have been able to let their guards down in relationships, always staying withdrawn. They need to help each other work themselves out of their shells."

"Angie has a shell? I thought he was like that to the core."

"Some of us noticed he had problems dealing with Marie, so I had Karen give him one of those telepathic analyses that we had been giving to our recruits in Brasilia. It turns out that Angie's early distrust of Dana turned into respect, then into infatuation. It broke his heart that she fell in love with Zor, though he'd never admit it. I don't know whether this relationship between them is because Karen feels sorry for him, she is empathizing with him, or if she actually likes the big lug in some way. It may be that at this point, she needs him as much as he needs her. I'm not sure how much Karen has told you and Noel about the extent of her relationship with Rem, but it was pretty intense for a while. Besides her more obvious hangups involving Noel, she might be a bit jealous of Dana and Zor as well."

"This is beginning to sound complicated."

"You better believe it is. But, we're wandering - what were we talking about before we strolled down soap-opera lane?"

"Uh... I think it was the parts shipment. Well, the parts arrived in fine condition, and they've been working on installing them around the clock since. The nutrient processor went online two hours ago, and it's currently in start-up mode, producing the enzymes needed to soften up the waste that's been sitting in the system for 20 years. Odds are, it will only be used to supplement the rations you sent up, but they really need to eat as much as possible to make up for their near-starvation. From my experience, Tiresian clone females tend to have a little more tissue mass than a Terran of similar height and frame, from the means of their creation and the dietary supplements that kept them in top shape. Even without those treatments, they don't drop far in condition. However, here, they had cut rations back so much to non-essential personnel that they looked like they looked more like fashion models in the advanced stages of anorexia than Tiresians."

"I could send up more rations."

"Actually, it's better if they eat the nutrient paste. It's designed for easy assimilation into the body, and it's not all that safe for a quarter of my patients to eat solid food yet. Plus, there's some recipes that Nyra an a few others have been showing them - believe it or not, add a little baker's yeast and that paste makes a dough for a bread that not only serves as a meal, but has much better taste than the paste. It's a staple in the EBSIS, even among the humans, especially with butter, jam, or peanut butter."

"I thought the Russians didn't like peanut butter?"

"Their Zentraedi heard about it from our Zentraedi, and the agricultural and industrial uses of peanuts meant that there were large crops to be utilized for food. Eventually, enough of the humans tried it for it to develop into a niche market. Of course, the Russian variety is only about a century behind in quality from the western version, so it's an acquired taste for westerners."

"We're wandering again..."

"Oops... Next subject then, will be the engine repairs. The contragravs are worse than originally thought, and they need at least a dozen more engineers up here to help, if they want to keep December 3rd a realistic launch date. On the other hand, the fold engines are ready to go, once they can get the ship out of the Earth's gravity well."

"The Soviets are already raising a fuss over what we're doing."

"Dammit, Scott, who are they to gripe? They lost less than a thousand fighting the Masters, and those were only the personnel of their orbital facility. They could have fought the Masters alongside the Southern Cross, but chose not to, after it became apparent that the Masters' efforts were concentrated on the Southern Cross and its Protoculture reserves. We lost over a hundred thousand troops and two million civilians in just the last week of the war. If anyone has a right to determine the disposition of a ship in Tiresian hands, it's us."

"Too true. But, they're afraid that it might become another _Kramer_. They haven't even gave Major Andreyev's reports any credibility - in fact, he might not have told you, but they're accusing him and his men of collaborating with us to deny them the vessel, and want them to return to be tried for treason. I have a sneaking suspicion that the reason why Dimitri wants to talk to me after your brief is to ask for asylum for his men. I can't give it to him, but I can't stop them from going with that ship back to Tyrol, either.

"Alex, you've been doing far beyond your original mission parameters for the last few days, and I'm going to send up a unit to relieve you. Arrange for quarters for a couple Legios squads, an 8-person medical team, and two dozen engineers. Once they're settled in, you're to return. Dana and Zor can continue to act in their ambassadorial role, if they wish, but the rest of you are to return for some hard-earned R&R."

"Understood, Colonel. See you in a few days."

**Chapter Ten:**

"Graduation day is always a bittersweet moment for those taking part, but ours was even sadder, because we knew there wouldn't be enough time for a second class to make it through the full course load. We were scattered immediately after graduation, with barely enough time for a couple beers between us before we went to what would be our final assignments before the sky fell. The Québécois returned to their homeland, my Japanese friends to theirs - and all probably died within minutes of each other, that fateful All Fool's Day.

"Others were more fortunate, whether it was by design or chance was immaterial by war's end. I only faintly remember Dana, Noel, Alex and the rest, before they got their "advance placement" with Vulcan Division's Eastern Hemisphere forces. Had we paid more attention to other training clusters, Lunk, Rook and I might have even noticed each other - but then, why would we have, given we were all bound for highly different careers and destinations? After all, Lunk never used his real name for most of the war, after Nader and the others died, and I left 'Lance Belmont' behind at the base, and even today am only starting to use it again as a pen name.

"Out of uniform, I had been Lancer since high school, and had been using it as a stage name since I first started performing in 2026; ironically, it was my ticket into the military, for a doomed project that still brings back bad memories. Yellow came along not long afterward, when a role in a Japanese project (non-memorable for many, very different, reasons) allowed the discovery of my talent for female impersonation. Yellow, in turn, led to my short career in New York, before the Invid arrival, and to my own survival. Even today, it's strange to consider that the only reason I escaped the Invid was because of the direction my career took after playing in a really bad J-pop remake of **M. Butterfly**."

- Lancer, Memoirs of a Freedom Fighter

**28 December 2030**

"What are you watching, Alex?"

"The Brasilia graduation ceremonies. If we hadn't started our retraining almost immediately after you and Zor were released from the hospital, we'd be there too."

"Recognize anyone in the crowd?"

"Just a couple of the Japanese contingent. I met them through my anime collection."

"How so?"

"Well, I retrieved it when we went back to Monument after our honeymoon, as I'd been too concerned about you to pack our personal effects when we left there. It turns out that very few of the shows that predated the Global War survived the combined devastation of that war and the Zentraedi, at least not in a playable format. Most anime fans there have only heard stories about the golden age of that medium, when cels were done completely by hand, and up to 40 different series would sometimes air in a year's time. The destruction of old Tokyo took out most of the studio and the archives, not to mention the EMP effects on all that old equipment that could play the old videos and laser discs. I think that if they could have gotten away with it, they'd have spent more time watching the stuff than actual training. Of course, I wasn't about to lend out my player."

"Where did your godfather get that player? I know that thing never saw the inside of a factory."

He had a friend that was an electronics geek, and they actually built "Frankenstein's Home Theater" themselves. They scrounged technical specs from God only knows where, and parts from long forgotten warranty repair stashes, and kit-bashed probably the only player capable of playing all forms of laser media, including a couple forms that never were marketed outside the Orient. They also built the thing inside a casing designed to give class four military-level EMP protection to a mid-90s computer network server, which allowed them to stick in several formats of video tape player as well."

"It's amazing it still works. Hell, it's amazing it ever worked."

"It was on its last legs when I joined the 15th - at which point I made it a personal challenge to Louie to get it back to 100% function, if not better. It took him the better part of the summer of '28, but he did it. Best five cases of Petite Cola I ever lost."

"You actually wagered that he couldn't fix it?"

"Not really - I just figured it would be cheaper to make a bet I knew I'd lose, than to actually ask him for an estimate on fixing it straight up. I think he spent close to two weeks pay on raw materials to scratch-build new parts, so I made a good call."

"Sneaky... Good thing he never found out."

"I think he might have had a few suspicions, but could never prove it. By that time, he was working on "improving" the barracks simulators, and we know how that eventually blew up in his face."

"Are any of the graduates coming here?"

"No. They'll all be heading back home, to be instructors, or to set up our resistance networks before the Invid get here, so they'll be ready. Odds are, we'll never see any of them again."

"Why are we doing this, if the Invid are just going to kill them? Aren't we just training them to send them to their deaths?"

"They don't have to fight the initial invasion. That's the whole idea behind this training - teaching them to NOT follow the gut instinct we humans have to fight at first engagement, but to wait until we have a chance to succeed - and to put together groups of fighters quietly during that wait, to multiply their firepower. Every one of those soldiers is taking a couple cases of weapons with them, to cache away near their destinations, for that very purpose - even those going back to regular military service."

"But, do they truly understand that, and be willing to wait as hundreds or thousands die around them? Will they be able to sit back and watch friends and family die, if it comes to that? I don't know if I'll be able to do it, and everyone I care for is safe either here, or far away from the threat of invasion. Earth's my home; it doesn't feel right to let the enemy have even a temporary victory."

"I know; but we don't have any other choice. The Earth needs live freedom fighters, not dead heroes. We have to wait for the fleets to return."

**20 March 2031**

Three months had nearly passed since the graduation ceremony, and there still hadn't been any sign of the Invid. What little progress Scott and the others had made with the world governments was crumbling, as the independent nations began to suspect the REF of trying to manufacture a crisis, as the forerunners of the UEDC had in 1999, before the SDF-1's arrival fulfilled and surpassed the wildest plans of the conspirators. Unfortunately, the Invid weren't ones to give ten-year lead times. They would mean business the day they arrived, and that would be much too quick to allow any unity in action not already agreed on weeks in advance.

In January, Scott had managed, with Zor Prime and Karen's help, to convince Rem into giving them the plans for making the improved-model Protoculture matrices he'd developed. Even so, Rem did so only with the assurances that Karen and Zor be in charge of choosing who would receive the devices, needed to mass-produce the cells used by the newest models of the REF's mecha. Given the Flowers growing wild, a fuel shortage could only result from a lack of machines to do the conversion. But, on the other hand, giving out the processors freely could cause an explosion in Protoculture use - something the Invid would take as an affront, and a direct tie to the Masters' evils. Letting the processors fall into civilian hands would only cause massive civilian casualties when the Invid did arrive.

Today was Noel's turn to babysit the "hot seat", the rows of monitors tied to deep space sensors. It was a requirement of Scott's that everyone above the rank of O1 in his unit pull one 8-hour shift per week in that section of the TIC, but the reasoning was lost on her.

"Boring, isn't it, Sis?" Karen said, reaching around the chair and giving her sister a decidedly un-military hug.

"I thought monitor duty was something Intel officers and comic book characters did, not combat troops. Patrols are boring - this is closer to sensory deprivation. What are you doing here, anyway? I thought you and Angie had patrol duty with your team today."

"We did, but we had to let one of the others take them out. It's over between Angie and me. We were both fooling ourselves. We were both needed someone to help us forget, and that's nothing to base a relationship on. Once we'd rebounded, we figured that out. We'll still be flying together, but not as a Legios team. I'm going to one of the Vindicators, and he's going to fly Beta for Tompkins. In case you hadn't heard, Jenna Tompkins just got grounded for medical reasons of the best kind."

"The best kind... I get it. When's the baby due?"

"Late October. Angie will make sure Mike lives to see it, too."

"You know, both Uncle Scott and Alex thought your relationship with Angie was like that, but I was hoping they were wrong."

"Just like them to worry about others first. Speaking of Alex, when are you two going to grace us with the pitter-patter of little feet on the hangar deck?"

"Karen! If you really want to know, we're waiting for the end of the war. We don't think it would be right to bring a child into the world right now, and risk it becoming an orphan, while removing us from the lineup to take care of it. We're short-handed as it is. If you're going to be nosy, do YOU have any plans for children in your life?"

"Actually, as many already suspect, I already have children - the two being raised by Rem and Janice. Rem's their father - they were conceived on Haydon IV, and born during my disappearance you might have heard about, when everyone thought I was dead. What actually happened was something a bit more complicated - I found out, by more accident than anything, that I can jump to entirely different realities with my powers. I spent several months in a magical kingdom, guests of its rulers, who were experienced dimensional travelers in their own right. They helped me return, after the children were born, and the three of us were strong enough to make the return hop."

"And, you left them with their father because they'd be safer there, than here."

"That, and I can always have more children, should I find the right man - Rem and Janice can't have children of their own, obviously. Given my genetic links to the person Zor patterned Janice's original personality after, the two are the closest the couple will ever have to biological children of their own, until such time as Janice might feel the need to actually take Zor's research one step further, and build herself a biological body."

"I've seen pictures of them; they're beautiful children. It must have taken a lot to give them up."

"That's why my relationship with Angie was so important for a while. I wasn't trying to get my mind off Rem, as much as off the fact my babies were across the Galaxy, where I couldn't hold them. It was like cutting out part of my soul to part with them , but I had to do it, for thei-"

Karen stopped in mid-sentence, fell to her knees, and screamed in pain. Noel, who was actually sitting down, was similarly affected, but stayed in her seat, tearing grooves in the fabric with her fingers, trying to fight the pain. The screams, however, brought all activity in the TIC to a screeching halt (quite literally). The sergeant at arms wasted no time in coming to their side.

"Lieutenants, what's wrong? Should I call for Dr. Tyler?"

"N-no," Karen gasped. "Call our uncle and the generals. Go to battle alert - the Invid are approaching!"

**Chapter Eleven:**

"We have to pay for all we use;

We never think before we light the fuse.

Look up, Look up, Look up! The sky is falling

Look up! There's something that you have to do

Before you try to go outside and take in the view

Look up because the sky could fall on you..."

- Yellow Dancer (Lancer) "Look Up!"(2031)

"Where's the enemy?" Scott asked the senior intel officer on duty, as he came into the TIC.

"We don't know - we've not got them on sensors yet, sir."

"Then, how do you know they're coming?"

"Your nieces were affected by some sort of psychic effect, and when we went to assist them, they told us to send for you, and tell you the Invid were near. Given the nature of the powers they've demonstrated in the past, we did so immediately."

"You did the right thing - it was Karen's premonition that gave the original Brasilia Base a few minutes' warning when someone dropped a derelict Zentraedi spacecraft on it in 2017. Have you contacted our other bases yet?"

"Emerson and Fokker are standing by."

"Put them through."

"Emerson here. What is the nature of your emergency, Africa Base?"

"Rolf, this is Scott. We've had an incident here. Both Noel and Karen are saying that the Invid will be here, very soon. I request permission to implement Phase Two of Contingency Plan Hydra."

"I've just gotten word that there's an energy reaction detected entering the solar system at high sub-light speed, on a course that intersects Earth in about 20 hours. It doesn't fit the Invid profile, but from what you've told me, you only fought the Regent's forces, not those of his mate. Given all that was reported about the two, her strategy could be completely different than the Regent's. Permission granted. I'm ordering the Factory Satellite to shut down all Protoculture systems, and our two Zentraedi ships to fold out well beyond the energy front, to protect themselves, and not return to the inner system until given the all-clear. We're shutting down as well, as soon as we complete the activation of Hydra Two."

"Roy?"

"I'm recalling my patrols - we should be buttoned up tight in five hours, tops."

"I've opened our circuit up to the system-wide alert frequency," Rolf stated, triggering the prerecorded alert message, that would be followed by the codes to implement the plan.

"ATTENTION ALL RDF FORCES, AND ALL EARTH GOVERNMENTS. PREPARE FOR IMMINENT INVASION FROM SPACE. PROTOCOL HYDRA TWO IS BEING ACTIVATED. SIGN AND COUNTERSIGN WILL FOLLOW," the voice (ironically a synthesized sound-alike of a younger Admiral Lisa Hayes Hunter) intoned, repeating the message four times before going silent.

"First Sign: THE SUN IS HOT. Repeat, THE SUN IS HOT," Rolf said, almost stiffly.

"Countersign: ICARUS HAS FALLEN. ICARUS HAS FALLEN," Roy replied.

"Verification: DAEDALUS FLIES ON. Repeat, DAEDALUS FLIES ON..." Scott paused, then continued. "All stations, civilian and military listeners, this is CINC-REF-SOL, Protocol Hydra Two, as formulated by the UEG/RDF Civil Defense Committee in 2018, is now in effect. All leaves are canceled. All military personnel are to report for orders immediately to their nearest command station. If followed as agreed in 2018, this includes all non-RDF military personnel, though whether to report to their own command structure or the RDF is their prerogative. ALL USERS of Protoculture, a.k.a. Robotechnology devices, are advised to shut them down as soon as physically possible, no later than 3 hours from activation of the protocols, and keep them off-line until given the all-clear. This is to prevent alien sensors from using that unique energy signature to discover and target military objectives."

"This is CINC-RDF-EARTH," Roy continued. "This part of the protocol is a general civil defense announcement. All travel should be halted as soon as safe to do so, with the exception of ocean-going vessels. These vessels should avoid port until the all-clear sounded, and if in port, should make way for open seas within the next 12 hours, to prevent being caught in port by an orbital attack. Do NOT try to evacuate cities by any means, at this point - most likely, the more activity on the ground, the more likely the aliens will attack that location. All communities implement curfew at dusk, or in twelve hours, whichever arrives first. This is an official order for all areas still affiliated for the RDF and its components, and strongly urged for all independents. Other than broadcasting the details of this alert, which should be available in all civil defense archives at stations and network hubs, it is strongly recommended that civilian broadcasts be curtailed, and that the stations power down and seek cover, within eighteen hours. After 48 hours pass from this announcement, they can resume broadcasting, at their discretion."

"This is CINC-ASC-SOL," Rolf took over, to finish. "This will be the final communication from the orbital command. All outer-system colonies are now on full defense alert, and are to follow their existing plans for avoiding detection, including the immediate cessation of the use of Robotechnology items until further notice. For my associates in the various UEG fragments, the EBSIS Defense Ministry, and Patagonia, I ask you to listen to my advice. The survival of humanity is more at stake now, than even when the Zentraedi attacked. If you have Zentraedi among you, ask them of the race known as the Invid - it is that race of aliens that is even now entering the solar system. For the sake of your citizens, heed this alert as well, or pray to whatever god you worship, because the Invid have never shown mercy. Good luck, and my prayers are with you all on Earth."

With that, the screen went black, followed by Roy and Scott cutting their links to the alert channel. Scott turned his attention to his own forces.

"Have someone contact the African Commonwealth government, and give them a full briefing - the Hydra Protocols predate the formation of the Commonwealth."

"Yes, sir. Any more orders?"

"All H90 sidearms are to be turned in and stripped immediately. Southern Cross conventional energy weapons and the REF explosive projectile weapon series are to be the only ones issued until further notice. All Cyclones are to be parked in storage mode, with the power cell removed. Call me paranoid, but I'd swear that the Invid could SMELL that stuff in use like a shark smelling blood in water."

"Well, it is made from their food. Anything else?"

"If you're religious, do what the General said - pray. We're going to need all the help we can get to survive this."

"Already doing so, sir."


	16. Book Four, Part Fourteen

**Part Fourteen: Hammer To Fall**

**Chapter One:**

"The days following the Invid arrival were tense, leading to frayed nerves, and decisions that would mean life or death for millions. Unfortunately, many earlier decisions were second-guessed, and like many second-guess actions, they were changes from a viable (though distasteful) option to a truly bad one. The deaths that occurred from others deciding to depart from our original plan still haunt me to this day, as I can't help but wonder if I couldn't have done more to stop them."

- Scott Freeman, Memories of the Madness

**28 March 2031**

The Invid invasion was in a manner no one had expected. Instead of arriving in transports and battleships the the blitzkrieg manner of the Regent, the Regis and he Invid arrived as a single energy being. Any attempt to strike against it resulted in fiery retribution, even though those strikes were doing no apparent harm in their futility. It was in this manner that the EBSIS died, as did the reformed nation of Brazil. Brasilia Base died with its host nation, being as much a casualty of the Brazilian resistance as Nueva Janeiro, neither of which were connected to the attacks other than from proximity.

After circling the Earth several times, the Invid collective hovered over the most fertile fields of flowers, those of the American Midwest, downwind of the ruins of Macross and Monument. The region south of the Great Lakes was already clear of snow, with the flowers in full bloom, creating optimal conditions for the Invid. The energy form set down there, near the old intersection of Interstates 70 & 75, then expanded into a glowing hemisphere, that slowly expanded over the next week.

It was at this time that the first Invid mecha were seen. Being the closest, the self-styled Barony of York (which had a man claimed to be the British Prince Harry, who had been on a tour of the US at the time of Dolza, as its figurehead) felt the most threatened, and launched a pre-emptive strike on the bubble. All contact was lost with those that entered the bubble, but the invasion resulted in a horde of Invid Iigaa Scouts emerging from the bubble, and wiping the xenophobic petty nation from the landscape. New Detroit was hit next, again a casualty of being too close, but was not hit as hard, being on the far side of the bubble from the attack. The only communities there that were totally destroyed were those with old RDF mecha present (when those mecha went active to try to defend their homes, ironically), or a large percentage of Zentraedi in their population - the latter pattern going unnoticed until weeks later, by the enslaved survivors (all of which were human).

For a total of nine days, the perimeter continued to expand, remaining roughly ovoid, though not centered on the original epicenter after the first day. By the time it was done, it covered most of Ohio & Indiana, as well as parts of Illinois, Michigan & Kentucky. However, its height never seemed to go above about four kilometers, despite the horizontal expansion. All attempts to fly over it or near it were destroyed by mecha or internally-mounted defenses once they crossed an invisible line of about six kilometers from the structure, though one former Southern Cross high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft managed a flyover at an altitude of sixteen kilometers, spotting what appeared to structures forming underneath the nearly-opaque bubble. On its second pass, though, it was finally noticed, and incinerated by a high-power energy beam from with the bubble.

Finally, the barrier faded to nothing, as smaller versions of the original energy construct burst from it, settling on all the other habitable continents, as well as other North American locations. All of this was recorded by the last remaining surveillance satellites in orbit, which had been set up to do recorded data drops similar to the earliest such satellites by the ASC, as they were created and launched to observe the enemy in that war, and the drop system was intended to allow data recovery through the Masters' near-constant jamming of space communications with Earth.

All this led to a council of war between the surviving military leaders - at least, those who had legitimate power. Several survivor nations had seen military coups in the wake of the Masters' War, and refused to participate, thinking that others would use the emergency to depose them, much as what the RDF did in 2012 in initial attempts to reunify the planet, before agreeing in the inaugural 2013 sessions of the UEG to allow self-determination and secession, once the food supply situation began to stabilize in such regions. As things stood, even setting up the conference call was a monumental feat, due to lack of resources.

The sole surviving comsat was permanently over the Indian Ocean, being in geo-synchronous orbit. The Eastern Hemisphere participants and the Lunar forces could use it, as it was relatively unnoticed at the moment by the Invid. Connecting in the American participants was much more problematic. Either they could bounce a com-laser off the lunar-orbit array used to relay communications to the moon when it was over the horizon (and, most of these were only marginally functioning due to lack of maintenance from the Masters' dominance of near space the two previous years, combined with potential damage from the jamming methods), and have a truly horrific time lag, or they could try to activate some of the twenty-years-dormant trans-oceanic cables dating from before the space age, then having the European, African or Japanese participants patch them in. This option had less lag, but more technical problems. Manhattan & Quebec chose the cable method (being too close to the Invid to risk the laser being noticed), but the Pacific Coast & South American participants were evenly split.

General Emerson finally brought the meeting to order, after an hour of banter between the various factions, many of them still showing distrust of their new "bedfellows", to use the old war analogy.

"Gentlemen; I have asked you all to participate in this debate, since we now have common cause." The tone he took with this sentence, especially with the word 'now', served to remind everyone that this type of meeting should have been taking place regularly for months before the invasion, had not national & regional hatreds prevailed - and not all of the blame could be laid on the prideful nations already turned to dust.

"We have an important decision to make... Do we move now, while the enemy is preoccupied with consolidating its beachhead? Or, do we wait for the reinforcements and space support from the SDF-3, the Pioneer Mission fleet, and the colonial militias, as per the original plan? Both plans have their pros and cons, which is why whatever plan we choose, we must not do so lightly, and we must act on the chosen plan in unison, instead of splitting ourselves between the two options, for we are definitely doomed to failure, if only some act, while others wait."

"Do we have any estimation of the enemy strength?" asked Daryl Embrey, the former communications minister of the Far East Sector of the UEG. Embrey was now the defacto leader of Japan, most of the civilian government having fled to private bunkers in China when news came of the imminent Invid arrival.

"Based on the Regent's forces, which were co-opted by the traitor T.R. Edwards after the Regent's death, we initially expected one to five million Invid, plus at least as many of their robotic minions called 'Inorganics'," Scott Freeman reported, as the channel reserved for diagrams flashed images and technical readouts of the four major combatant Invid, the hive guard power armor, and each of the different types of Inorganic. "However, it seems we made a grave error, in basing too much of our plans on the Regent's model. As you will see, it is now apparent that the Regis uses none of her late husband's tactics, other than use of the primary mecha and armor types."

"What, then, is the situation?" General Khytai of Quebec asked, his micronized Zentraedi form dwarfing the others, even via television monitor. Khytai had been instrumental in forming the original action plan, having fought the then-unified Invid for several decades as his fleet was harassed by them, in his part of the search for the SDF-1. The pursuit only stopped when he was recalled by Dolza, shortly after Breetai's arrival in the Solar System. The few Invid that had pursued him were vaporized by the grand fleet, as they defolded, and that was the last any Zentraedi had seen of the 'pests' prior to the SDF-3 mission arriving over Tyrol.

"The satellite photos show no sign of Inorganics. Nearly all the mecha present are the lowest stages of Invid weaponry, the Iigaa, Iigau & Gurab, which were the functional equivalents to scouts, light troops and heavy troops, respectively. However, the "scouts" are considered expendable, and have only melee weapons. Their preferred strategical uses are swarm tactics, and any number of losses of these types seem to be ignored, as long as it results in a kill. Only a few of the hive guardians have been spotted, but they are hardly the most visible troops under normal circumstances. But it seems that there are very few of the types that would wear such armor. If these were the Regent's forces, this would be a good thing. But, for the Regis' troops, this bodes ill, as what little experience we had with one of her hives, on Garuda, showed a tendency to have only a handful of these evolved types, but making up for it by at least doubling the complement of lesser types. We had thought it a precaution based on environment, due to the hostile biosphere of Garuda, but we are seeing the same pattern here. And, this makes a bad situation worse.

"In the Invid command area, what you Zentraedi termed a 'Reflex Point', there are many hives - many more, in fact, than ever recorded in fleet records, or on the worlds occupied by the Invid after the Tyrolean departure from Earth. In fact, it is safe to say that there are probably more Invid in North America alone, than faced by the REF in its entire war with the Regent. These hives were transparent for the first few hours of their exposure, after the membrane over the Ohio Valley dropped. Inside of each hive there appeared to be tens of thousands of these lower-caste soldiers, most in stasis. And, if the hive structure is similar to those of Garuda, Spheris and Peryton, there are further layers of stasis storage we could not see - perhaps as many as thirty, all with the same capacity. Each ball of light that left the Reflex Point has formed one to three more of these hives on landing. Out best estimates so far put the number of Invid combatants on Earth to be somewhere in the low eight-digit range, most of which are in stasis - for now, at least."

"Low eight digits? Can't you be more precise?"

"If you insist, but the differing means of estimation create a wide variance. The majority, though, fall between twelve and thirty million Invid, depending on how deeply the stasis areas extend underground. Even with only one percent active, the outnumber all our mecha combined in just numbers, let alone firepower. And, if something disturbs their sensor net, such as the REF or colonies folding in troops too close to Earth without using some sort of stealth procedure, the rest can be brought out of stasis within a few hours."

"Then, we'll have to hit the hives now, before they can get fully entrenched," Jon Wolfe spoke up. "Unlike their energy form, I know from personal experience those hives can be brought down."

"I wouldn't be too sure of that, Jon," Scott countered. "After all, when we were liberating the Sentinels worlds, the Invid hives were days, if not weeks, from contact with their leadership. We've never before fought fully-equipped Invid in close contact with one of their racial leaders, unless you count the ill-advised first attack on Optera, where the Regent was foolish enough to come out into the open. And even then, it took near-suicidal tactics from Breetai and Karen to get him, after the assault had already started to fail. Everything I've ever seen indicates that the Regis is nowhere near that foolish - or as hands-on in leading troops. We'll never get that lucky again."

That's why we need to assault all their positions at once," one of the former ASC colonels added from ALUCE, where he had ended up after the "Strike Force Victory" debacle of the year before. "The forces on the ground need to hit the smaller hives, while we send in our new Garfish and Horizont forces to assault the Reflex Point from orbit."

"The Horizonts are unarmed drop ships, and the Garfish glorified cargo haulers!" a Garfish captain from Copernicus Base rebutted. "What kind of orbital assault would that be? Suicidal!"

"Not if we use our two Zentraedi ships as the true orbital bombardment, to cover the descent of the smaller vessels to ground. It will be the only way to get Destroid and Spartacus units close enough to Reflex Point to be a factor in the outcome."

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Roy joined in, participating in his first public strategy session since his cloning 13 years before. "Most of our ground forces have less than fifty hours experience in their mecha, and, other than the training battalions, practically none of them have even a single hour in combat experience in them."

"I feel confident in my men's ability to use the new mecha. And, Fokker, did not most of the SDF-1's air wing consist of people with similar training levels, and they performed well enough under fire for you to make it back to Earth?"

"That's not the same, and you know it, Walker. On the SDF-1, we used pilots that undertrained only because that's what we HAD to use to survive. And, if you actually looked up the classified numbers instead of the ship-board propaganda - propaganda, I might add, that Leonard used, and continued to emulate in his own propaganda in the last war - you'd see that the typical pilot trained on the SDF-1 to the standards you suggest died within his first six hours of combat duty. Rick, Max and Ben typified the natural talent that managed to survive repeated baptisms of fire, to learn the hard way what we didn't have time to teach."

"The SDF-1 lost more pilots to combat damage to the ship than to enemy fire. It's a historical fact."

"BULLSHIT! We lost six whole squadrons without survivors in just the flight back to Mars, which for morale purposes were attributed to hits on the barracks areas on the SDF-1 and Prometheus. Squadrons lost because their men had about 300 hours of experience between the fifteen of them, most of it possessed by the squadron leader and his two wingmen. Don't try to argue the numbers with me - as the CAG, I had to write all the phony letters to the families, and it tore me up to do so, as I KNEW those young officers, and that most of them were months from being ready for command, when they were forced into it. Had alcohol been more available on board, I'd have drunk myself to death long before we got back to Earth."

Roy paused to compose himself, then continued.

"This isn't the Zentraedi War; the Invid aren't going to hold back the way Breetai did, out of fear of damaging the Protoculture Factory. In case you haven't noticed, North America is hip deep in the stuff, and those flowers are both the source of Robotechnology AND the enemy's primary food source. They will defend that food and fuel source with the same single-mindedness that we aboard the SDF-1 defended that ship, for the same reason. That reason is that in both cases, the defender has no place else to go, so abandoning their position is not an option."

"Why can't they go back where they came from?" a Scandinavian general asked.

"Because it really doesn't exist anymore," Scott replied. "Under their first orders from the Masters, the Zentraedi came the slimmest fraction from rendering the Invid home planet incapable of supporting life, in order to monopolize the Protoculture, after stripping as much of the material as they could. The Invid then pretty much consumed what was left since then, as the damage to the world prevented it from growing properly, in becoming the warrior race we see today. The only thing that kept them from going extinct was the stasis ability we see in the hives, and that the Masters seeded several of their inhabited subject worlds in failed attempts to produce more of the flowers. The results weren't usable for power, but they were still usable as food, and that is why the Invid subjugated those worlds as soon as the Masters left them unguarded.

"REF scientists, including two Tyroleans instrumental in the discovery of Protoculture's abilities prior to its perversion by the Masters, are attempting to undo the damage done to the Invid homeworld, but it might take decades. And, even if successful, one of the races whose world was seeded with the flowers, had their planet self-destruct as a result of Invid experiments with the world's interior, and the council formed by the former Tyrolean subject worlds gave Optera to that race in compensation, so the new locals and the Invid would never agree to share the planet. Neither race has anywhere else to go. Do you understand?"

Evidently, most of them didn't, as the conversations deteriorated from there into infighting, as two factions emerged. One wanted to stay with the original plan, and wait for REF backup, while the other wanted to act now, hoping to catch the Invid unprepared, while in the process of setting up house. Finally, a vote was called for, and the results tallied.

"The final result is twenty-seven for quick action, eight against, with five abstentions. The decision is for quick action. Though I feel this to be a grave mistake, I will go along with your decision, and formulate a plan to best use our forces." Emerson let out a sign of a type he hadn't used since failed attempts to change Leonard's ideas of strategy. "All parties are to draw up and submit an order of battle and suggestions for the disposition of their forces for the assault by this time tomorrow. I will then reconcile these with each other, with hopefully a workable strategy will be ready. Have your troops readied for deployment within 72 hours, with the attack commencing within twenty-four hours after deployment. I now adjourn this meeting, though I encourage you to talk to your fellow commanders directly, to work out additional strategy for possible implementation."

One by one, screens blanked from persons either leaving, or going into private discussions. Scott soon found himself on a private channel with R'ykandar.

"I don't like this, Scott."

"Neither do I. But, the problem is that most of the other representatives, be they ASC survivors, RDF system forces, or independents, have no concept of what the Invid are like, or only have seen the recordings of where we fought the ones being forcibly controlled by Edwards. And, I don't know why Jon's so gung-ho all of a sudden - just two weeks ago, he was firmly in our camp. Be sure to keep enough reserve power in your capacitor banks to fold out if things get hairy. Tell Maria to do so as well."

"I always do, Scott. That's how I was able to fold out when the Masters practically folded in on top of me in '29".

"Make sure Maria knows how to set her ship up for that as well. She hasn't fought the Invid since the trip to that alternate universe, and she might harbor some issues because of her counterpart's death there. Also, remind her that the two ships being Zentraedi vessels will probably make the two of you the primary targets of anything the Invid can strike into space with, which while it sucks for you, might be the distraction we need to pull this off."

"I hope Emerson can pull something out of his bag of tricks for this one, because I can't see how this assault can have a chance without one of those patented miracles of his."

"Me neither."

**Chapter Two:**

"Professionals are predictable; unfortunately, the world is full of amateurs."

- Anonymous, Murphy's Laws of Combat

**1 April 2031**

Two days of brainstorming had resulted in a plan that would utilize every resource at hand. The transports on the Moon would launch, traveling to the limit of Invid sensors. The Zentraedi scout vessels would then speed in on their sublight drives, and begin bombardment of the Reflex Point air defenses from high orbit. Simultaneous with the bombardment, the various ground forces (who were already positioning) would move in and attack the hives scattered around the planet. With this distraction, the transports would begin their approach, escorted by the Cougar fighters and VAF-5 Condors developed on Mars for TASC use, but produced too late to be of use in the war with the Masters. It was extremely risky, and the timing had to be perfect on all fronts.

The object for Scott's forces was the southernmost hive in Africa. The African Commonwealth Army would hit the central one, while Fortress Gloval (whose troops were augmented by EBSIS survivors that managed to make their way across the desert, where the Invid chose not to follow) would attack the one located in the Nile valley. It wasn't easy, but they managed to get into position in less than the 36 hours allotted to that phase of the plan.

Scott was taking no chances with his part of the assault, even as distant from the main assault as he was. No Gallants were issued, only ASC & REF conventional energy & explosive weaponry. Cyclones were limited to motorcycle mode on their way to their positions, with the P-cells pulled, and running on their backup power systems. Only once in position would the cells be put back in, and the bikes left unpowered until the go order came. Most of the mecha were the fusion-powered ASC Battloids and a couple variant-power hovertanks, salvaged by the 15th ATAC in their odyssey of the year before.

The hive perimeter was nearly surrounded, though a full two kilometers back from the hive sensor perimeter that Scott had learned to respect on Garuda. Only one mecha was closer, and it was there purely for recon purposes. Locals had reported that the Invid had not restricted vehicle travel on the road that passed within 800 meters of the hive, and Scott's one gamble was that the Invid would not recognize the LRV-558 as a mecha. After all, the LRV wasn't used on Karbarra, those sent with the Sentinels were destroyed with the _Farrago_, and the _Ark Angel_ didn't have any aboard when it was "delivered" to the Sentinels. It was powered by a civilian-legal (though expensive) fusion power plant, so it wouldn't be any danger to the plan in that regard. It was even camouflaged with a fake load bed to further the disguise.

"Swensen, how do things look?" He asked one of his scouts, using her maiden name to differentiate her from her husband.

"We had a close call a while ago. One of the hive guards came to check us out. He must have been one of the more intelligent ones, because he actually understood what we meant about not being able to fix our vehicle without help." Part of the deception in getting the vehicle in place was equipping it with radials, instead of the usual combat solids, and having one hub weakened so that a hidden charge would cause the hub to fracture, once the LRV was approaching its position. Thus, it would appear to be the victim of a manufacturing fault of the wheel, and would have to remain at the spot it came to rest (unless, of course, the Invid chose to move it bodily, or the crew had to transform to Battloid - a worst-case scenario).

"And, what did it do from there?"

"It led John to the village down the road, where he was to be put on one of the buses toward the coast. He's supposed to pick up a new wheel, and to ride back on the bus when it returns here."

"Did it leave a guard with you?"

"Yeah; a couple of Iigaas, of the claw-only flavor. With this cruddy paint job and all the extra crap, we appear to be, in the words of Douglas Adams, 'Mostly Harmless'."

"Now, explain it to me why I'm having to use a transfer from Dana's Alpha to talk to you?"

"We're using a scrambled digital cellular phone to talk to you - the system's still up in this region. Dana cloned her phone into her Alpha's comm system, and this way our signal seems like ordinary civilian traffic. Heck, the Invid have been having their collaborators use it as their primary means of communication."

"I'm going to have to have a word with her about that. I don't know whether to commend or reprimand her for it."

"Be glad she did it. The Invid here, at least, seem to be hip to what human military signals and equipment look like, as they went over the cockpit looking for a military transceiver. The false dash over the mech controls saved us from being shot on the spot."

"How does the hive activity seem?"

"Normal. The Invid have a couple hundred slaves, calling on volunteers first, setting up the farm."

"How do you 'volunteer' to be a slave?"

"According to one I talked to, it was in exchange for letting the others be evacuated. Volunteers get better food and quarters, and their families are free to leave - even come back for visits. Those picked from the remaining crowd to meet quota get the worst jobs, more work hours doing it, an no privileges. I'm suspecting that the head hive guard must have worked on one of the subjugated worlds before the Invid leadership split, but I don't dare ask, as it would give away how much we know about them."

"Logical, in a perverse sort of way."

"How much longer until the balloon goes up?"

"The ships should be in position right about now. When they are set, we'll get a T minus fifteen signal from orbit."

"Then I'll start getting ready- uh, Boss, any chance you could have missed the signal?"

"Why? Is something happening?"

"Those two scouts just took off like bats out of hell."

"I'll get back to you. To be on the safe side, get ready to transform and make a run for it, but don't do it until I tell you to."

Scott immediately switched over to the priority channel, which was quickly filling with the sounds of chaos. Most of it was questions or accusations about the same thing - had someone jumped the gun? Finally, Emerson cut in, overriding the chatter.

"Attention all stations; our hand has been forced by the Mexican Army. Apparently, they attacked the Nicaraguan hive on their own, without any knowledge of our plan. This has set the Invid on full alert. This is your attack order. We are skipping ahead to T plus one of the plan in fifteen seconds - mark."

"Shit!" Scott turned to his logistical team. "How are we set?"

"Two minutes ago, we were at 95% readiness; probably closer to 98% now," Major Marie Phillips replied. "However, we've lost our primary advantage with the alert."

"Start our attack, then. Keep tabs on the first wave; if they meet resistance beyond that of simulation two's level, then the other waves are to abort and return to base, as per plan." Simulation two had involved accidental exposure of the plan, and had resulted in 90% of the forces being lost, if the attack was pressed, with the hive holding. Scott was not about to pull an Anatole Leonard with his men.

The commands were relayed, as Scott prepared to either fight or flee. It soon became clear it was to be the latter, as the hive started disgorging defenders even before the initial wave could get into range of the hive.

"What are our losses so far?"

"Five percent, mostly cyclone troops. Their engines are like big, flashing "shoot me" signs to the Invid. Both sides are taking heavier than projected losses, but they're still reinforcing faster than we can knock them down, and the Cyclones are starting to run low on ammo. They'll have us on attrition alone."

Scott switched his armor over to his divisional command circuit, and issued his recall orders.

"Attention all forces, this is an abort command. Repeat, this is an abort. Battloids and other non-Protoculture mecha, cover the Cycloners' retreat as best you can. Cyclones, fall back as best you can. If you can get clear enough to transform, do it and go to backup power mode. Otherwise, retreat to the designated rivers on your map, jump in, and disengage your Cyclone there, and proceed on the bottom using the CVR's life support to where you can leave the water without being spotted. All units are to remain in the field until evening two nights from tonight, at the earliest. Make sure you are not being followed; if this means hiding your equipment in the field for later recovery, and coming back on foot, do so. We can recover it later, after the Invid calm down from this fiasco. Freeman, out."

Scott watched the carnage from his command center, Karen & Noel having teleported as many of the troops back (minus mecha) as they could, before becoming too fatigued to continue. By this time, almost all of what he was seeing was recordings, as the last satellite had been lost with the majority of the attack fleet from the Moon. On the bright side, the Invid lost most of the transports that they'd conjured up, so until the Invid could spare the resources, the Moon was as off-limits to them, as Earth was to the system forces. The Zentraedi ships made it out, but only because they followed the plan they had discussed with Scott. In fact, at the time of fold, they took probably a couple dozen Invid with them, each, but the fold would have disoriented the Invid enough for them to be easy targets on defold.

Most of the ships and fighters from the Moon bases never made it out. A few made it to ground, and scattered their troops to the winds, pursued by angry Invid (most of which usually stopped to destroy the ships before going after the infantry). None of the ships that turned back returned to the moon, as to not jeopardize the hidden locations, mostly on Farside. The Garfish and larger vessels made for Mars. So did a decent number of Horizonts, though at speeds more like that of a 20th century deep space probe, not having fast-sub-light capability. Most likely, Mars forces would send tenders out to recover them once the Invid stopped pursuit, otherwise it would be a long trip for the ships, taxing the life support in the bunkers, not to mention the taste buds of the passengers, who would have to eat field rations for the entire trip.

New Tokyo suffered one of the more horrific fates of the retribution. The Invid managed what the Masters could not, and the entire underground cavern built underneath it collapsed, the city falling into it, even as it was destroyed from above, then the sea rushing into the hole. Hordes of Invid arose from the Reflex Point, and scoured Quebec from the face of the planet. Mexico, whose attack precipitated it allm was rendered lifeless in a series of attacks that blanketed the inhabited areas with continuous fire, creating a barren buffer between the north and the hive area.

It was at this point that the satellite had died, as the Invid were turning their attention to Europe & Africa. Rural areas of Africa were spared, being potential areas for flower growth, but Scandinavia was quickly joining the rest of Europe as a depopulated wasteland, when the transmission ended. Strange as it was, there was no sign of New York City or Venezuela Base being attacked. Still, they probably would face the Invid's wrath soon. Just, without the satellite, only the Moon bases would be able to see the results. Millions of lives lost, because one nation wouldn't cooperate with the others in planning a comprehensive strategy. Scott's warning to the now-dead governments had rang true, and the horror his prophecy foretold, now unfolding in front of him, sickened him to the core. Cassandra of myth must have felt like this, he thought, though she at least didn't have to live to see the results of her greatest ignored prophecy, as he now had to do.

**Chapter Three:**

"...But this would not be a fifth column of traitors, bent on paralyzing a free country, but the antithesis of that, a sixth column of patriots whose privilege it would be to destroy the morale of invaders, make them afraid, unsure of themselves."

-Robert Heinlein, _Sixth Column_

**20 May 2031**

"Now, lieutenant, what's this idea you wanted to talk to me about?"

"It came to me while reading some of the old Heinlein novels in the base library. Sir, you know how the Invid give preferential treatment to those who work willingly for them, as opposed to those they subjugate?"

"Yes; you have something to exploit that tendency?"

"Well, if we could infiltrate those fifth columnists, with 'sixth columnists' of our own, to use Heinlein's term, we could use such deep cover agents to gather the intelligence we need to take out the hives later, as well as to collect the evidence we will need to separate the true traitors to humanity from those who volunteered to save their kin, when it comes time to try the traitors for their crimes."

"How would reports be sent in?"

"Dead drops, mostly. The intelligence we are getting from our watchers is that a typical slave population can roam outward up to five kilometers from their location, for various recurring tasks. In-person reports would be too risky, once we get infiltrated into their ranks. Our equipment specialist has come up with a hollow brick dead drop design that has a high UV signature for easy spotting with UV optics, but to an Invid or a human using normal vision, it looks like an ordinary brick. He's also developed a means of clandestine signaling, but he's still testing it. As it is, we will have to find places close enough to make drops, but far out enough for Sword to make data recovery safely."

"How many volunteers do you have for this? I'm not going to order anyone to undertake anything this risky for a long-term mission."

"Including myself, there are nine of us within the Recon unit willing to give it a shot. All of us are African natives, so there won't be any odd accents to suggest we are recent arrivals to Africa, though most of us will be a few hundred kilometers from our ethnic homes, even if we balance the distribution to reduce the apparent distance we had to come. Of course, we'll need another week of conditioning to get ourselves into worse condition."

"Excuse me? Worse condition?"

"If we went in looking this fit and clean, they'd know something was up. To get ready for the trip, we need to leave hygiene behind, and live in one set of worn-out clothes for a week, while our equipment load is chosen and suitably aged artificially to pass for salvage and overuse. It's important that we have the right... aura... for the job, to fit our disguise."

"Don't you mean 'aroma'?"

"That's part of the overall disguise, after all."

"I see your point. Just be sure to arrange special quarters for your men while you prepare, and make the quartermaster a list of items you want, and in what condition you want them in. We'll have someone drop off the equipment outside the quarters, to minimize the effects on your 'aura' on the rest of us."

**29 May 2031**

The amount of preparation for the mission was staggering, considering that it was for a group smaller than a normal infantry squad. Clothing was to personal taste, a mix of old civilian clothes and heavily worn military fatigues. Ration packs were on the verge of their expiration date, and from as many different lots as possible, so that no two agents had food from the same source.

Transportation was a bit more difficult. Most civilian transport was limited to mass transit or bicycles, even before the Masters arrived, let alone further infrastructure failures resulting from the Invid arrival. The transportation of choice was the ASC Mountain Squad bicycle, a tough but light design based on the last used by the Swiss for their bicycle-mobile defense forces during the global war, but made with the superior alloys and composites derived from the technology recovered from the SDF-1. It even had a civilian version popular in rural areas, so passing them off as such would be as simple as replacing a bracket for a field radio with one for a civilian radio or wireless phone. While the bikes were all new when they were unpacked, they were subjected to chemical treatments and physical damage that simulated years of abuse, while leaving the bikes mechanically sound. Only the tires were not touched - they'd develop sufficient wear during the ride.

Weapons and armor were the most difficult things to decide. While one could artificially age the bicycles and clothes, military equipment was a different story, save for the still ubiquitous AKM/AK-47 rifle, manufactured in such numbers that, prior to the Zentraedi, the typical street value of one in northern Africa was comparable to a filling up at an oasis (be it fueling a pickup or feeding and watering a string of camels). The choice for heavy weaponry finally came down between the obsolete Lancer laser from the Malcontent era and the Weasel 9mm used by the REF. The laser had a higher shot capacity per magazine, but it was unlikely one could ever recharge them once they left base. The Weasel was likely to be mistaken for a conventional 9mm pistol, and could fire normal ammunition as needed, but one was even less likely to find reloads of the heavy stuff. Both were developed to be able to penetrate the high-tech armor worn by Zentraedi, and eventually, even human troops, but were more a danger to 20th century light combat vehicles than to anyone wearing the last generation of Southern Cross armor. You could even potentially drop an Invid scout - if you were suicidal enough to get within ten meters and put a couple rounds into the viewport that its sensor suite was built into and around, giving the mecha a cyclopean look.

Military-style body armor had to be limited to old suits from the Malcontent era, or the equivalent from the early ASC. These could take one or two shots from the above weapons before failing, except of in the faceplate. They also lacked the energy dissipation qualities of the later suits, such as those worn in the war with the Masters, that could shrug off such primitive energy attacks such as the Lancer pistol as easily as a heavy kevlar police vest could shrug off a .22 pistol. Two of the nine had their own custom cloth armor suits - flexible body suits proof against light civilian weapons (other than some bruising or burning), but worthless against anything heavy (whereas the plate the others used at least gave a chance of surviving a near miss or glancing shot from a mecha weapon). The cloth was the same armor used for the body sleeves meant to be worn with the Cyclone's CVR-3 armor to provide full body protection, but was in short supply.

The ability to communicate the need for a data pickup was the highest priority, as without it, the mission wouldn't be run at all. The dead drop container was only half the equation, as the UV-reflective coating only helped to locate the drop once someone knew to look for it. The other half, the signal that there as a pickup to be made, was provided by a bag a seemingly worthless baubles. Kept in a black felt bag within the brick, each device was a miniature solar collector and radio beacon. Left in the sun for six to twelve hours (depending on weather conditions and the time of day, even split over a couple days if conditions truly adverse), it would charge an internal capacitor. Once the capacitor was fully charged, a burst transmission would be sent, to have its location triangulated from remote receivers set up tens of kilometers away in different directions from the underground REF base. After a minute of transmission, the remaining charge in the capacitor would be discharged into the beacon's self-destruct, melting it into an unidentifiable mass.

While this would work for getting messages from the agents, getting information to them would be nearly impossible, unless it happened to coincide with a data pickup, in which case the material would be left in the drop container during the retrieval. Even then, there was no guarantee that the agent would venture back to the container quickly enough for such data to be relevant, as the agent might avoid the area for a while thereafter, in case the pickup mission was detected by the Invid or their collaborators.

The agents rode off on their heavily-laden bikes without any fanfare, shortly before dawn on the morning of the 30th. Each traveled his own unique route, meant to scout as much territory as possible before reaching their final destination, and reducing the likelihood that all three for a single hive complex would arrive on the same day. The initial plan was that the collected data from the trip would be picked up from each, as their first data drop from the hive area. It was quite unexpected, then, when one of them set off a beacon on his fourth day out, and gave a personal report to the team sent to make the recovery.

"Is he sure of this?" Scott asked?

"His source was pretty firm on it," Dana reported, having been the one to take the rather smelly agent's report that morning. "We've been noting and recording broadcasts by civilians since the invasion, and the data patterns support that source. Of course, SIGINT didn't recognize there even WAS a pattern until I told them..." Dana rolled her eyes. She'd never had a high opinion of data analysts, anyway. "The Invid appear to have little use for radio, and tend to monitor only obvious military frequencies, or transmissions that could be military, such as digitally encrypted signals. What little they know appears to be from survivors of the Regent's forces, passing on to the Regis what they learned from fighting the REF. After all, both the Invid and the Masters used telepathy for their mecha commo, and the Masters' FTL para-radio, used by their ships and the Zentraedi, is about as foreign to normal radio frequency operation as the first telegraph is to television."

"So?"

"There are a number of pirate radio stations operating, in addition to official ones controlled by collaborators. The pirates, as well the ham radio operators, only get jumped on if they make one of the following mistakes. One, they become too vocal against our new ant overlords-"

Marie Crystal and Marie Freeman both groaned at the old cartoon reference (one of Dana's favorite in referring to the Invid), temporarily interrupting Dana, who smirked at them and continued.

"-two, they use the same frequency too often and/or too long, or they stick to the same schedule too often, or three, they attempt a scrambled or digital broadcast.

"Those operators that have been active for the longest, are those that jump frequencies from broadcast to broadcast, change their broadcast start time almost at random, and never stay on more than thirty minutes at a time. They broadcast in clear language, but couch their messages in slang terms and double meanings, even references to page numbers in a book. Call signs and handles don't appear to be a problem, unless someone uses one that has a military rank in it - and one never addresses the aliens or their flunkies directly, only by inference. Also, the power of the transmitter can play a part, as a local transmitter is less likely to be attacked after an hour than, say, a backup repeater from the old BBC would be after 10 minutes. By the way, the BBC example was actually tried by someone, and the Invid mistook the broadcast for a military one, due to the signal strength. The source was surprised that someone was even able to get that old rig running, considering it had been in mothballs since ground data transmission lines became good enough to backup the satellite relays, a half-century ago."

"So, if we pretended to be just a ham radio operator, using remote shortwave sets to distance our location from the transmitters, we could conceivably set up some sort of message system to communicate with Fokker and the other surviving elements of Earth's defenses."

"Provided we could get someone there to them, to tell them what to look for, and give them a 'play book' to figure out how to best structure messages to seem innocuous."

"Get someone in Cryptography to work on setting up a code phrase system for dropping into civilian conversations. I want several sets ready by the end of next week, and I need to find someone to take the first set to Fokker. Either we can fly the courier up to the south coast of Arabia and walk it in, or we can have one of our ladies with 'special talents' teleport there, or at least teleport over the site of the base and parachute to the ground. They can always teleport back here safely."

"I can't speak for Noel and Karen, but I've only worked up to the scale of rooms, not thousands of kilometers, in terms of my abilities, so count me out. Why the parachute?"

"In case something's happened to that base that would make a destination unsafe, be it rearranged furniture, to the base being destroyed and collapsed in on itself. Better safe than sorry."

**Chapter Four:**

"I don't know which type I had the least regrets in killing- those who willingly sold out humanity, or those who took advantage of the chaos and lack of communication to kill and brutalize others for purely selfish motives." - Angelo Dante, Interview 12/19/35

**07 June 2031**

The next signal from the field was much more sinister. Over the period of three hours, all the signaling devices from one agent went off, in one location. As this was unlikely to be an accident on the part of the agent, Scott called his strategy team (his wife, and the commanders of the units under his command) to discuss the possibilities and options.

The possibilities brought up and discussed were whittled down to four. The first was that the agent was robbed, and the devices had been dumped as worthless. The second was that an attack or accident had destroyed the bag holding the devices. This was unlikely as the bag was disguised as a false brick, meaning that the bag, the brick, and whatever pack was stored in would have to have been damaged without destroying the devices. A third possibility was that the agent was searched by some group, and the items dumped. The last was that he'd been forced to talk, and the devices were dumped to lure the responder into a trap. In all cases, it was at least as likely for him to be dead, as alive.

The discussion was made to outfit someone to investigate, and drop them in close to the site with the Shadow Beta. Given the criteria of needing someone capable of defending himself, with experience of combat and survival in a hostile land, the list was rather short of people Scott was sure would be able to handle the mission properly. His final choice was, ironically, someone more experienced as a mecha pilot, but who had strong recommendations from those who had served with him in the ASC. Scott left it up the soldier's former CO to convince him to accept the mission.

"You feel up to the challenge Angie?" Dana asked.

"I thought the whole idea of your unit was this kind of mission. I'm still a hog driver, even if it's Beta now, and not a hovertank."

"Our covert ops are combat missions, not recon; you of all people should now that, after the hospital incident back in Monument. Besides, you'd blend in better with the locals. You can handle yourself in a brawl without resorting to weapons, or the spooky stuff that would have Noel and me burned at the stake as witches. Most of all, you actually look like you could have survived off the land since the invasion, unlike the rest of us."

"But-"

"Angie, think about it. Do I look like the kind of person that could have wandered the roads for weeks and not get jumped and gang-raped? Noel's even more obviously not the survivalist type, and our husbands are scientists first, soldiers second. And, John and Jen are hardly covert at anything- they're more meant as bodyguards for us when we're deployed, not covert solo missions without mecha in a region that's probably less violence prone since the Invid arrived."

Angie had to take a second to get the mental image of Dana being assaulted out of his mind, given that he still had fading feelings towards her as something more than a friend and superior.

"Until we have intelligence that can be acted on by my unit, we can't commit. We need someone like you to get that information. Besides, you won't be as limited in equipment as the others, as you won't be going anywhere near a hive complex. If things get too hot, you can hit a panic button, and Noel and Karen can bring in the cavalry."

"Okay, I'll do it. But you guys had better make sure that I'm safe at all times. I don't like what it looks like out there and more than you do, and there are a lot of locals that aren't too friendly to non-Africans, even more so than their constant fighting with the neighboring tribes."

Angie had little difficulty locating the missing agent, three hours after being dropped off. While the body was well off the road, its location was given away by vultures and other scavengers. The corpse was almost mutilated beyond recognition; most of the damage was from the scavengers, but some of it was obviously caused by humans and appeared by the blood patterns to have been done while the victim was alive.

Most of the survival gear was missing, including his packs. About half of his clothes, however, were apparently judged as worthless, and were scattered around the ground, having been removed from the missing packs. The fake brick for use as a dead drop was missing, as was the black felt bag that held the solar powered radio flares. The remains of the flares were a pool of melted plastics a couple meters from the body. Amazingly, the bandits made no attempt to hide their trail from the kill zone, though it did merge back with the dirt road a few hundred meters down the way.

Though faint, there was so little traffic on the road that Angie was able to follow the tracks all the way to the nearest village. As expected, he drew stares from the locals, and he found it near impossible to start a conversation with them. While none of the people appeared to be the bandit type, they didn't appear capable of defending themselves either- as burned out remains of the village hall and church indicated. Finally, in what barely resembled a trading post, he found the owner to be a bit more conversant.

"Looking for something, stranger?"

"Yes, I'm looking for a couple of these, if you have any." Angie placed a couple of hunting arrowheads on the counter.

"I'm not sure if I have anything like that."

"Anyone ever bring any in for trade?" In fact, Angie knew that the dead man had several dozen he'd carried around as trade goods, capable of being used as arrow, crossbow bolt or spear heads. "A friend of mine used to have some, but he seems to have lost them."

The trader seemed to react to the comment, so Angie pressed further. "I need to find the people that took them from my friend, so I can take care of some unfinished business. Can you direct me to them?"

"Are you trying to get me killed?" the trader whispered.

"So you do know who acquired them from my late friend."

"They are dangerous men. The whole town is afraid of them. They have a hidden camp somewhere; possibly in the old village. No one who goes near it ever returns."

"The old village?"

"When I was young, before the Zentraedi came, a plague hit the village. Most of the people died. The UN sent in doctors, and made us build a new village here. However, not everyone left, and it was rumored that the village had fallen victim to an AUL bio-weapon, as plague bore little resemblance to plagues the elders knew about. Some of the wildest rumors had the plague actually originating in the village, as some of the buildings were built by Soviet advisors prior to the Global War, and were still in the hand of Europeans before the plague hit. The plague affected few of those building occupants, yet the Cuban doctors who came later were no more immune than we were."

"What happened?"

"The village was evacuated at gunpoint and burned. However, people moved right back in and died. Zentraedi lived there, fifteen years ago, but left one night. Every few years, someone would try to claim the village, only to die from the madness, or from other causes. The last group was found dead outside town, apparently from a madness-caused firefight last year. Yet, everything they had of value was missing, and their weapons were hardly capable of the carnage. The bandits began their raids here, a week later. They have killed many, and come into town often. They appear to have set up camp in the quarantine area, yet no one has seen them about it."

"Any of them in town at the moment?"

"No, but they should be arriving in a few hours. Don't throw your life away. Leave, and forget your friend. Fighting them will only get the townspeople killed."

"I don't intend to fight them. Only to find out about them, and exterminate them when they are as helpless as you are. I'm not the only friend of their latest victim."

"Then I wish you and your friends luck."

Angie departed the town, continuing on the route the dead agent would have taken, checking at irregular intervals to see if he was being followed. Five kilometers out, he was sure he had no pursuit, and pulled off the road. He shouldered the bike, and walked back to the village two hundred paces before turning into the grasses, and walking to a small mound. Behind the mound, out of the sight of the road, he setup his camp, unpacking his bedroll, weapons and armor, and setting up a low net of camouflage barely high enough for him to sit up beneath. He stretched out on the bedroll, to get some rest before the busy night ahead.

He approached the deserted village after dark. He'd put on the CDU armor that he'd been issued for the mission, both for safety and to access its features. While his size made it harder for him to be stealthy, in some ways it was a blessing, as the armor's additional size made its add-ons less obvious than they would have been on a suit sized for one of his old squad mates Bowie and Louie. The helmet in particular was an older model, from the days when the Recon/Escort Patrol wasn't established as an autonomous unit within the TC, and was equipped like the later REP helmets rather than the later CDU ones.

Besides the normal optical targeting lenses in the faceplate, a voice command could raise or lower small displays in place of the lenses. This allowed the user to access the full range of features, ranging from thermal imaging to a highly sophisticated night vision that could render its data to appear in full color, as if in heavy overcast or just after sunset.

An unintended side effect of the enhancement and color compensators was that artifacts and areas with uneven wear tended to be colored differently than the surrounding features. The manufacturer was surprised that the procurement testers considered this to be a positive, as it meant camouflage, booby traps, false walls and even buried mines were much more easily spotted. Of course, the RDF and ASC only publicized that it was "not as expected," and had the manufacturer 'perfect' it without the unintended feature, for sale to civilians and independents, leaving the superior version manufactured in secret for the RDF and ASC, to the detriment of despots and insurgents worldwide.

So, it was with relative ease that Angie was able to read the supposedly pre-Zentraedi quarantine signs, and note that several of them appeared to be too new, with the staining present not from fading but from deliberate application. He also spotted several trip wires, relatively (probably since the Invid arrival) recently placed buried mines, and a couple Global-War-era chemical mines loaded with God-only-knows what. Most likely it was something that lethal exposure to resembled one of the viral plagues that were only tamed in the mass death from Dolza's attack, combined with treatment breakthroughs derived from Zor's work. In fact, it was one such chemical weapon that was to be used by Malcontents, before the plot was exposed and the stopped by the Southern Cross in 2018.

He picked his way through the brush, being careful to avoid anything that would show that he'd gone that way, as well as anything that could be an ancient mine. And, Murphy had been correct, in that easy ways were all mined; he hoped the next line of the saying was false- that of the hard way being an ambush. In fact, it was probably true in the past, as he spotted a non-functional mini-camera along his route. Lack of power, or equipment failure at some part of the system, had led to the disuse of the monitoring system. Given the prevailing conditions, the former was the most likely.

One still-erect building caught his eye. Its step was worn from recent use, not covered with a patina from environmental weathering as the others were. He watched it for a few minutes, and eased over to peer in, once no movement was seen to be occurring inside.

The interior of the building showed some fire damage, but not enough to allow its collapse. From the exterior appearance, it was probably the local clinic, built by 'advisors' sent to win over the locals. Indeed, on closer examination, the building appeared to be named after Fidel Castro, indicating probable construction by Cubans.

The floor, once inside the doorway, was obviously not the original, being made from rough-hewn logs with planed-down tops and bottoms. In its condition, no amount of caution would prevent it from acting like a "canary floor," its creaking giving away the presence of intruders. Two rooms in, however, he could see the faint flickering light shining out of a hole in the concrete floor of what was probably a treatment room.

He decided to risk climbing to the second floor of the two-story building. That floor turned out to be the gutted apartments used by the original medical staff, with concrete slab flooring. The stairs down appeared to have been wood, and had burnt in the long-ago fire. In their place was a ladder, probably only used when the bandits felt like putting someone on high ground as a sentry. From the empty stairwell, he could see the light he had noticed earlier came from a hole in a concrete slab, probably a hole in a trap door to allow it to be opened and shut. The door most likely had a powered mechanism in its original incarnation, as the hole appeared to be punched through after its construction.

Backing away from the stairwell, he placed a surveillance camera in the debris, to allow him to insure, before he returned, that the second floor would not have a guard watching his approach. He lowered himself back out the window, and made his way back through the obstacles and mines to his campsite. He saw a plan coming together, but it would take at least four people to pull off, and one of those would have to be Dana, Noel or Karen. Of course, it was exactly the type of mission the ladies were trained for, as Dana so noted in her recruiting him for this scout mission. He sent a short, encoded, AM signal back to base and waited for Sword Squad to arrive, hoping that a one second compressed burst was too short to attract the Invid.

"Colonel, we have a transmission from Lieutenant Dante," the watch officer reported to Scott, who was making breakfast for his two daughters when the call came in. Scott counted himself lucky that the girls were maturing only slightly faster than human norm (unlike their cousin Karen), as they only ate about twice normal meal sizes, compared to Karen's 10-15 thousand calories a day in the first half of 2017. As it was, it was like cooking for four or five adults.

"What's the message?"

"It was bandits, and he's located their camp. He requests Sword as backup."

"Request approved. Have Zor fly them up this evening, for a night op tomorrow."

**Chapter Five:**

"Karen had proven during the Sentinels campaign just how useful her powers could be for special operations. When it became apparent after our return to Earth that covert ops would be a major factor in resisting the Invid, I had her brainstorm with our technical staff to develop specialized equipment for use by our three known telekinetics (my wife didn't exhibit more than minor telepathic and healing abilities prior to 2035). Anyone who's seen "Carrie" can comprehend telekinetic projectile attacks, or the mayhem one can cause by pulling the pin on a grenade still attached to a foe. But more creative, non-lethal tactics take more devious minds to develop, and most of those are still a part of LGSA special ops today, like the use of telekinetic manipulation and placement of video remotes."

-Scott Freeman, _LGSA Military Forces Special Operations Manual_, introduction to Chapter 3.0, "Applications of Paranormal Abilities to Battlefield Use".

Zor flew Angie's reinforcements in the next night, using the base's sole shadow-equipped Beta. They were dropped off ten kilometers from his camp, and covered the distance in ten minutes of power skipping in battle armor mode, since the Beta had shown the area was clear of Invid for the moment. Zor turned toward home for the extraction signal, as soon as the three arrived at the camp site.

"Only three of you?" Angie asked.

"Zor's too valuable to risk in a fight with bandits," Alex replied. "Of course, it was like pulling teeth to get him to agree to let Dana drop without him. As for our other two squad mates, they are held in reserve to escort Zor in case he has to extract us from a hot LZ."

"And Karen? I know she's not officially part of your unit, but she's hip-deep in the production of your toys."

"She's busy with some research, but is also held in reserve," Noel explained. "If things get too nasty, Dana or I can call her in to bring in the cavalry. Given your former relationship, she thought it best not to be a part of the mission crew."

"Angie, make sure your Cyclone's combat ready while the area's free of Invid." Dana ordered. "I didn't carry it here for it to be a hundred-kilo paperweight at mission time. Once we get through with the equipment checks, we'll stow everything we don't need tonight, and you can lead us to the target. It's about time we get to try out the bit cams in the field."

It was about 0300 when they arrived outside the ghost town, and they crept in past the defenses to a position within line-of-sight of the doorway Angie had looked into before. This time, there wasn't any light present. Noel opened up a small case, about the size of a pistol carrier, and pulled out a camera about half the size of a white board marker. She lifted it up about a meter from the ground, then released it to hover in place.

"That still creeps me when you do that," Angie commented. "Things are supposed to fall when you drop them."

"I guess you never watched much science fiction when you were younger. All telekinesis is, is manipulation of quantum forces through focusing my body's energy to increase some inertial and gravitic bonds, while decreasing others through absorption. Of course, even Dr. Lang doesn't know how it's done..."

"...Just that it works," Dana continued for her cousin. "I've seen some of the physics lab scans of Karen moving around a ton weight. You could see the energy being exchanged between her and the target on the instruments, but not it passing between them. The energy transfer is as much quantum transfer as a teleport, just a lot more gradual. So now you know-"

"-and knowing is half the battle..." Noel finished. Two could play cornball cartoon reference, and she had grown up with Dana, after all.

"This is not the time for bad 20th Century TV references," Alex chimed in. "The camera is operational. I'm linking it into your helmet HUDs."

"Okay, until I get it into the room where Angie saw the light, I'll be going without my HUD. I can better control the device while I have a direct line of sight. Give me instructions as I move it in."

The probe slowly moved into the building, as silent as something with no motive power can be.

"Okay, you're in the room. Come to a hover, and slowly rotate the camera's business end toward the floor... Stop now."

"What have you got?"

"A concrete trap door, about a meter square, with hinges recessed into the floor. It apparently opens upward, and the hole that the light came from is apparently where a locking system was, that's been shot out by an energy weapon. It doesn't have the tell-tales that explosives or a saw might leave, and is obviously not a neat hole."

"Is it large enough to send the probe through?"

"Easily, but you'll need to switch to the HUD to control it."

"Can do. Dana, hold the probe in position until I get my video perspective locked in."

"Got it."

"There. Ease your control off slowly, then gestalt with me. I'll all the help I can get to move it around outside of line of sight."

Noel regained primary control, and slowly lowered the probe, camera down, through the hole. The room beneath was about four meters to a side, its only furniture a crate and a chair, a mantle lantern sitting on the crate. Three of the walls each had a single door, with the chair and the crate against the fourth wall.

"Dana, still got a lock on the probe?"

"Yes."

"Good. Hold it steady while I try to open the doors."

"Understood."

The first door turned out to be a restroom of sorts. Two leaking toilets, a sink and a showerhead, all streaked with rust from being hooked into mineral-heavy well water. The relative sophistication of the facilities seemed to indicate that the shower was meant for decontamination more than simple hygiene. It was intriguing, since it appeared the clinic above never had ground water on tap, instead having a water tank on the back wall filled with buckets carried from the well in the village center.

The next door did not move, initially, so Noel turned her attention to the door across from the restroom. It opened, revealing a storage closet filled with a mix of janitorial supplies and a gun cabinet, the latter containing a couple AKMs and an open ammo case containing a couple filled magazines and several reloads worth of loose cartridges.

Noel was about to bring the probe out, when the center door swung open. In the ultraviolet light emitted by the camera (but invisible without proper optics to anyone else), they saw one of the bandits feel his way along the wall to the restroom. She quickly moved the probe through the open doorway.

Illuminated by the UV spotlight, they found the probe in a short entry way, with another door at the end. That door was ajar, so they slipped past in to the main facility. It appeared, from the Cyrillic writing, at least, to be a pre-Global War forward base for 'advisors' from the Soviet Union. The flag of the old USSR was painted on one wall, above the tables in what was apparently the mess hall, with graffiti present in Russian, Spanish, and French. Much of said graffiti seemed to date from the Neasian and Unification Wars, during which Russia had fractured into civil war. Those two wars, and how they polarized pro-Russian factions world-wide, were part of the reason the Global War was sometimes called the "Global Civil War," as nearly every Russian client state had erupted into civil war, eventually dragging the remnants of the UN in on the side of the moderates, to oppose the NEACPS. The Unification War, on the other hand, was more terror campaign than open warfare, and facilities like this one played a major part, until the arrival of Dolza rendered the terrorists moot.

The lack of maintenance seemed to indicate that the facility had been abandoned for a long period prior to the current inhabitants. This was probably due to the reunification of the Russian factions scattered across the planet, who formed the EBSIS from the shattered remains of Eastern Europe. Other than the UEG stronghold in Scandinavia, only the Arctic and Pacific coastal regions had been protected from the main fleet's second and third volleys by the Grand Cannon, leaving the surviving military and hidden agents to reconstitute communism as the means of saving their people. It wasn't until five years after Dolza that the reformed Soviet became an expansionist state once again, and by that time facilities such as this were no longer needed, as few battles were fought between purely Terran forces. No, the bandits weren't communists by any means; just lucky to find a long forgotten bunker.

There were several barracks rooms, enough to hold a company of men. However, none of them had more than five men sleeping in them, and the unused bunks appeared to not be in use at all. After slowly drifting around, room to room, they counted fifteen bandits in all. There were a couple of holding cells on a lower level, that were occupied by apparent prisoners. The probe couldn't get into the cells, but it was probable that the cells' occupants were young women captured and used as sexual playthings for the marauding band.

Noel was unable to guide the probe out, as the door was re-locked after the bandit came back from the restroom. So, she scanned around for a place to hide it, finally deciding on top of one of the refrigerators left powerless by the lack of a generator. Having seen the prisoners, she wanted go in right there, but she had taxed herself with the prolonged use of her telekinesis, and they weren't armed for an assault, anyway. The four retreated back to the camp, to plan for a raid after the next sunset.

The plan was simple enough; Noel and Dana would pool their abilities, after determining the area under the trap door was empty, and teleport them into that small room, already in Battle Armor Cyclones. They would then use a lockpicking device to open the door, hopefully catching the majority of the bandits asleep. Once the bunker was secure, Noel would telepathically call for the extraction team, and orders concerning the disposition of the bandits (trial, instant firing squad, turning them over to the villagers, etc.). The second one of the others described the plan as 'simple,' Angie realized that the team picked up a fifth member- an ageless grunt named "Murphy."

The teleport worked flawlessly. However, it was immediately after their arrival that Murphy showed, and the plan went to hell. Instead of a sleeping camp, they opened the door to find the entire bandit group, armed and armored, heading toward the door on their way to raid a distant village, a half-night march away.

The bandits, till this point, had been the big fish in the pond, so to speak. They all had Malcontent-era combat armor, and first-generation "Zentraedi-buster" energy weapons. Granted, the Lancer pistol was about as lethal to a Zentraedi as a pellet gun would be to a human, but one hit in the right spot could drop anyone in either case.

Against Cyclones, however, the weapons were more of a threat. While in some places, the Cyclone's armor was as good as a light mecha, and laser resistant to boot, there were other areas that had minimal protection, that even a lucky shot with an assault rifle would at least cause bruising, if not penetrate. Those weak areas were, thankfully, mostly the insides of the limb joints, but with the odds being about four to one, things were far from even.

Angie was the only one on the Cyclones' side with an effective weapon ready, as the others had out stunners in anticipation of unarmed opponents. They had mini-missiles, but it would have been crazy to fire them in such an enclosed space, as the armor-piercing rockets wouldn't even be able to reach cut-off-speed to release their solid penetrator, and the explosive ones would do them all in. While the two ladies dropped their stunners and activated their CADS, Angie fired over them, trying to pick off the quickest draws in the bandit throng.

Angie actually managed to drop two of the bandits with one shot (unintentional- both happened to be aligned, and didn't have their helmets on) before return fire began. Noel and Dana were amazing, managing to block laser blasts repeatedly with their forcefield-enhanced vibroblades, the ultimate expression behind the concept of the Daedalus Maneuver of the SDF-1. Only about a quarter of the enemy fire made it past the blades, and half of those were too high to hit even him. Still, the two ladies were taking a beating, as after fifteen seconds of fire, each had taken at least three hits, to his two. He'd dropped four of the enemy so far, but Alex had no field of fire.

Alex stepped back, then ducked into the restroom. The bandits thought they'd scared him off, and intensified their fire on the remaining three. Angie had dropped two more, when a crashing sound came from behind the bandits. Alex had cut through the back wall of the shower in the room beyond, dropping the wall on two of the bandits. Noel and Dana used the distraction to charge the bandits, putting the blades to deadly use on the first two lines of attackers.

Seconds later, it was over. All four Cyclones would need shop time to repair, but none of the wearers had more than bruises and transfer burns, that once rested, Dana and Noel could speed the healing process for. Twelve of the bandits were dead, two more were missing limbs, cut off between the elbow and wrist by CADS. The last was wearing the armor of the dead agent. Angie had nearly gotten him with fire, before he retreated. Ironically, in retreating he put himself in the way of the wall Alex dropped, and was trapped in the rubble.

As Alex and Noel held the prisoners, Dana and Angie swept the complex, finding only the girls in the cells; three of them, at best in their mid-teens, and two showing signs of pregnancy. It took some doing, but they managed to get the girls to follow them back to the cafeteria, where Alex and Noel gave them cursory examinations. Noel, in particular, was getting a disturbing look in her eyes; one that made Dana think of her sister Marie's unsettling description of Karen's wrath unleashed upon T.R. Edwards on Optera.

"Noel? Noel, answer me! That's an order!"

"Yes...?" The sound of her voice was chilling. Dana had a flashback to the day before Noel's cloning; to Karen Noel's freeing them from their kidnappers.

"Take the girls and teleport them to the base infirmary, NOW." Dana used every bit of command voice she could muster, and tried her best to reinforce it with her own, still meager, abilities. Noel hesitated. "Do it NOW, Noel! That's an order!"

Noel seemed to stagger a bit, from the conflict, then seemed to grow less tense. "Yes, ma'am." She made the girls link arms with her, then they disappeared in a flash of light. In shock already, one of the wounded prisoners fainted from the surprise of seeing them disappear, and the other started making warding signs against evil spirits.

"Dana, Alex? Is it just me, or was Noel getting really scary just then?"

"It wasn't just you," Dana replied. "Noel's never acted that way before, but Karen has, twice. And in both cases, what happened next wasn't a pretty sight."

"What did Karen do then?"

"In each case, the person she vented her anger against died a gruesome, painful death inflicted by her powers. Edwards was the second one, I was the only witness to the first time, as Alex should remember."

"The kidnapping in 2017, yes."

"I'm glad I was able to get her head straight enough to get her out of here. I'm not sure she could cope with the aftermath had she carried through."

Suddenly the ground heaved from a nearby heavy weapons strike.

"Damn it, Angie, we stayed in Armor too long! The Invid have picked up our mecha use. They must have had a patrol nearby."

"Dana, the building above the entry room's collapsed. We're not gonna get out that way. You think we could put our Cycs on these clowns and sneak out the back door?"

"Considering that if there is a back door, these guys never found it, I find that unlikely."

"That's just great..."

Suddenly someone spoke behind them.

"Noel said you guys needed a lift."

"Karen, you're as punctual as ever," Dana exclaimed. "Get us out of here! There's an Invid patrol blasting its way in here."

"Grab the prisoners and hang on!" A flash of light surrounded them, then they found themselves in Sword's hangar, a squad of MPs were already there to take the prisoners. The prisoners were even more shaken than before, the leader in the capture armor being the only one left standing after the arrival. A wave of relief shown in his eyes.

Karen looked at him. "I wouldn't feel so relieved, if I were you. You're facing capital charges in a martial law situation. You're could have been executed on the spot, but you are getting a reprieve long enough to get you to confess all your crimes and contacts. And, I'll be your interrogator." She then added to him telepathically, "And, you've only seen a fraction of what I can do."

The bandit leader paled, then fainted like his wounded underlings.

Two days later, the trial was held, and Karen made sure they related all their crimes, not just the ones against the girls and the agent. They were found guilty, and shot the next morning.

As for their former prisoners, two of the three were pregnant, and all were in bad shape physically and mentally. They were given quarters on base, with roommates chosen from volunteers from the hospital staff. Hopefully, by the time the babies were born, they would be ready to enter the base school system, which had been setup in May to educate both children and adults that had come to call the underground base home as a result of the Invid arrival.

**Chapter Six:**

"If only because we had, at best, small garrisons of Invid to face (in comparison to those of the Americas), we had a far easier time organizing resistance efforts in Africa than elsewhere (with the possible exception of the Australian Resistance, which was not only near-opposite from the main concentration of Flowers of Life, but was also least fit for the Invid - the few Invid there never even bothered to patrol the deserts). The primary thing that both African and Australian resistance groups had in common was the ability to use the Invid's attitude towards radio to their advantage. Both groups used local and shortwave broadcasts for communication, occasionally broadcast anti-Invid propaganda on AM, and even occasionally hijacked the stations belonging to collaborators, both radio and television. We would take the stations, more by stealth than by force, set up automated programs to play resistance guides on how to do things like improvise anti-Invid weaponry, then leave. Of course, the stations were destroyed shortly afterward - if not by the Invid, then by the parting gifts we left behind, in the form of thermobaric bombs designed to insure our broadcast would be the station's last." - Scott Freeman, _Memories of the Madness_

"Tweety to Green Knight, do you copy?"

The radio crackled to life, almost two weeks after the courier had left for Fortress Gloval. The original plan of having one of the empowered young women teleport into a skydive had been soundly rejected by all those who could have done it, so the backup plan was put into play. A former ASC Desert Squad trooper was airlifted to the ruins of Aden by Dana & Zor, and then made his way cross the wastes of Arabia to the base on foot (a vehicle being considered to be too obvious, should he be sighted by an Invid patrol, and he hid his armor under robes and an oversized Arab head wrap).

"Green Knight here. We read you five by five. How well did your farm weather the storm?"

"We're still standing, though we lost a flock of chickens that we weren't able to call back in."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Any problems with locusts yet?"

"None so far. They prefer the bottom land by the rivers to the North and West, and we rarely see more than a few strays."

"Want us to send one of our specialists to give you a checkup?"

"Sounds fine. They can use the barn from before. We emptied it out after we lost the chickens, in case you folks decided to pay a visit."

"Understood. We'll send them over tomorrow afternoon. Green Knight, out."

Major Crystal looked at Scott, as he removed his headset. "What was that about? It sounded more like a farm report than a military transmission."

"That was the idea. We can't use scramblers or obvious military code, otherwise we might tip off some of the brighter Invid that there are still unsubdued military units about. So, the code we worked up to use is made to sound like a conversation between agricultural stations."

"I understand the choice of Green Knight for your call sign; it was what you used as part of Skull. But where did Fokker get 'Tweety' from?"

"Ancient history. We chose it because it would conclusively identify Fokker."

"How's that?"

"The packet told him to use the name of the Fokker replica he used to fly. When Pop Hunter's Flying Circus was in its prime, they were sponsored by an all-cartoon cable network, who bought Roy the plane to use. It was named after one of the cartoon characters, and painted canary yellow. Eventually, though, the Russian Civil War went global, when the Chinese began backing the neo-Soviets, and formed the Neasian Alliance. Roy's Naval Air Reserve unit was activated, and Rick's father had to take over the plane. Though fuel was rationed, the Flying Circus stayed active through the war, then even a few years after the SDF-1 arrived, as Roy was able to get it a morale exemption from the rationing. Rick learned to fly in that plane, while Roy was away. Sadly, it was also the plane Pop Hunter was flying when he died of a heart attack, flying to one of Rick's competitions."

"That's sad. But I'm surprised that someone didn't try to make Tweety Roy's call sign."

"Someone else was already using the name, and his skill led to him inheriting "Baron" from another pilot that got sidelined as he entered full-time service, since the Red Baron had mostly flown Fokker aircraft. Eventually, though, his reputation grew to where he was using his last name as a call sign. Even the slightest hint of Fokker being part of the intercept tended to scare off all but the most fanatical pilots, or those stupid enough to think they could make their name against him. By the Unification Wars, only the fanatics remained."

"Now that you've explained the call signs, what exactly was the message about?"

"Now that contact's been made, you'll have to take a spare code book back to your quarters and familiarize yourself with it, since you stand a quarter of the command watches. The short version of that message was that they lost about a squadron's worth of pilots, and disbanded the most heavily damaged group to fill casualties in the other. Their location is still secure from the Invid, and they only occasionally see patrols, typically overflights passing between the Egyptian and Iraqi hives. Lastly, the loss of that squadron has allowed them to completely clear one of the hangars; specifically, the one that Sword used during the Dead Sea mission. So, with it empty, it's a safe teleport arrival zone for Karen & Noel, when we need to transport people or similarly-sized items between bases. If Dana's training continues at its current pace, she might be able to make the trip under her own power by next year. We think that, if the three gestalt their abilities, they might be able to take something as large as a mecha, but we needed a safe arrival zone to test that. However, getting Dana to that stage is going to be difficult."

"Why's that?"

"Karen swears right now that Dana has the raw power for intercontinental jumps, but is being held back by her own fears of what might happen if she misjumps. In fact, it's hard to get her to practice anything more difficult than a line-of-sight jump, if she's the one actually teleporting, instead of being a passenger."

"Imagine that - Dana finally found something she's afraid to do without looking before she leaps. And, it's even literally that, too. Is she finally admitting that she's as mortal as the rest of us?"

"Yeah, I guess you could call it that. I attribute it to all the close calls Zor's had, from Noel's rescue to nearly getting his head blown off last year. Then, there was that crazy idea he had about wanting to go to Reflex Point and attempt to talk the Regis into leaving. That might work, later on when we have the Invid backed into a corner, but it won't work now. I remember what happened with his brother Rem, on Haydon IV - and it was a lot more civilized, as they were trying to find the Protoculture Factory from Rem's memories, without losing the data. Zor, unlike Rem whose memories were dormant, remembers everything of the original's life, and would probably be subjected to a long, torturous death in retribution for his previous life's transgressions."

The communications officer nearby stood, and walked over to his commanders.

"Sirs - we have another message coming in on the frequency, and it's not from General Fokker."

"Put it on the speakers," Scott replied. "I wonder who it could be?"

"...Thunderbolt calling Green Knight or Tweety, please respond. We heard your communications, recognized your voice as our former neighbors. Our houseboat rode out the storm. Our location before the storm warning was 88-21 East, 19-50 South. Request a weather update. Over."

"Tactical, pull up the position recordings from the time of the Hydra alert broadcast. Was there anything at those coordinates?"

"One second, sir... The coordinates match the last known location for the CVS Vulcan."

"Thunderbolt, indeed..." Marie noted. Vulcan was the crafter of Jupiter's lightnings.

Scott pulled his headset back on. "Thunderbolt, this is Green Knight. We can't stay on air long, or the bugs start to swarm around the transmitter. Are you still in the same body of water as before?"

"Roger, Green Knight. It's good to hear from you."

"Same here. We have some business to deal with at the Tweety place first, but we can meet you after that. Can you meet us at the former home of the dodo, one week from today, on the side opposite the capital?"

"Can do, Green Knight."

"See you then. Until the meeting, stay quiet. Too much talk stirs up the bugs."

"Roger. Thunderbolt out."

"Dodo?"

"Mauritius Island. It's where the early explorers found the dodo. It wasn't the greatest tasting meat in the world, from reports, but it was better than what a lot of the ships had left by the time they got there. Eventually, the pigs, rats and pets that the ship crews set loose on the island finished off the birds, as they had no natural enemies."

"What made you choose that place?"

"It's isolated; east of Madagascar, and pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Plus, the area of the island I want to meet will be either the south or east coast of the island, which are the two sides not facing a nearby inhabited continent, thus more likely to throw off anyone who happens to see us. I've actually been looking for isolated places such as Mauritius, to set up bases from which to attack the African and Asian hive complexes. Such bases would preferably be uninhabited islands, or ones with very small populations that we can relocate if we need to. The idea behind this is that the Invid won't necessarily be expecting an attack from these areas, and even if they trace an attack back to the islands, the security of our permanent bases won't be compromised. And, if there is a population too large for that purpose, then at least we can let them know that the fight for Earth still goes on."

"So, you sending Dana's bunch out for this one, too?"

"Actually, I want you in charge of the mission, though for security purposes you'll be flying Dana's Legios to the island. You need to get some more current flight time in, before you start getting too rusty. Alex and Noel will be part of your team, in their own mecha. Alex because of his science training, and Noel because of her general usefulness, and that she's used her special abilities to speed-learn enough to where she's nearly her husband's equal in terms of education. You'll need to pick someone to be Beta pilot for you, and two more scientists to work on the island investigations."

"Okay, I can already tell you who my pilot choice will be, and it's not Sean."

"I figured as much - he still hasn't got past remedial Beta training. Who is it, then?"

"Falco. Like myself, he's a squadron commander that's been pretty much grounded since the invasion, and he's former RDF. As such, he's most likely of all our officers to know persons we might encounter from the Navy. The ASC Navy, after all, was basically the RDF Navy with ASC marine and SEAL units attached, and even after the change of designation, the air wings on board were as likely to be RDF Reserve wings as they were to be TAF or TASC forces. Leonard had little love for the Navy, and never really caught on that the Masters never considered the navy a threat, even though they had the only weapon that could have potentially put a serious dent in the Masters' forces."

"That being?"

"The carriers had the last stocks of RMS-1 missiles on Earth, and the VF-1s and VF-4s to use them. After the Masters' shields stopped the ground-launched reflex missiles, no one considered nukes to be an option - but the naval fighters would have had surprise on their side, and could have slipped under the shields just as easily as my unit could. Granted, the odds were that the pilot doing so would be caught in his own explosion, but I'm sure there were those willing to make that sacrifice. By the time the shields ceased to be an issue, though, we had found out about the civilians on board, and despite his swagger to the contrary, Leonard was too haunted by the events of the Brasilia Massacre to consider nukes again, except as a last resort. Rolf told me all about the real story behind that mess, on out trip to Brasilia, before you arrived. It was shocking - definitely a different side to the Supreme Commander of the ASC than I was used to hearing. It's really surprising that the truth never came out."

"What was the version Rolf told you?"

"Two different groups stole the food intended for Zeetown. One was tacitly approved by Leonard, as he was directing that part of the food to a human community that was in dire shape, but a lower priority to the RDF than the Zentraedi. The priority system was meant to minimize Zentraedi going rogue, but it often caused human communities to starve if something happened to reduce their food supply, like a bad harvest. His intent was to put both groups at the same level of marginal food supply, as two groups suffering from famine and malnutrition would have less fatalities overall than one group totally starving while the other was above minimum sustainable level."

"And the other group?"

"Their identity is unsure, but they did their deed before the convoy ever started rolling. The mecha that caused the massacre were heavily armed specifically to prevent such a hijacking on the open road, but the supply trucks had already been switched with empty trailers between the time Leonard's diverted trucks left, and when the escort Destroids arrived. In fact, that diversion probably interrupted all the trailers being replaced, as half the diverted ones were bogus as well. When it became apparent in Brasilia that half the trucks were empty, and the other half filled with false containers filled with junk to simulate a load, the crowd rioted. Someone popped off a LAW at a Destroid, and the pilot panicked, hosing down the crowd with anti-mecha weaponry. A couple others fired off a shot or two, but ceased fire when they realized the one pilot had over-reacted. By then, it was too late."

"Then, Leonard tried to cover it up."

"Out of guilt - not only for the redirected food, which might have been stolen even had it been left, but due to the identities of two of the apparent casualties."

"Wait a minute - guilt over the death of Zentraedi?"

"Not just any Zentraedi. He'd had an affair with a Zentraedi woman, but his xenophobe buddies in that cult that called themselves the 'The Faithful' were not happy with that, at all. They kidnapped and tortured her, after an argument that the couple had, and told her that he'd ordered the abduction and abuse. She eventually escaped, and gave birth to her son at one of the free clinics in Zeetown."

"Her SON? Leonard had a half-Zentraedi son?"

"That's what Rolf told me. He only found out back in '27, when Leonard went on a bender after the incident in Japan almost caused a war with the Neo-Soviets, and was talking about all kinds of things while drunk. Her captors had also kidnapped another of his ex-girlfriends, a nosy reporter that had caught wind of their illegal doings, and were going to kill both women, and deliver the Zentraedi's son back in a false 'rescue', claiming it was the reporter's son. They would then use the son's true origins as blackmail material to control Leonard, if he ever got anymore wild ideas. Leonard, on finding that the Zentraedi had escaped before the birth, decided to send his godson into Zeetown to try to find the woman and child before the Faithful did. All he had to go on was that Miriya had been contacted by her immediately following the birth, but before Miriya could arrange a safehouse, the woman had fled."

"And, the godson fell in love with a Zentraedi as well - Kayra's sister, right?"

"Yes. In fact, the woman and child were staying with Tinya Marinoni at the time. Miriya managed to find her again, as a result of a message passed to her by the godson, while he was coming to terms with the relationship, after confessing who he was to his lover. The meet was to be at the food distribution area, because of the crowd size. In the debriefings after the incident, Miriya testified that she saw mother and child die in the Massacre, killed by one of the particle beam blasts fired by the panicked Destroid."

"Dear God..."

"He was out of his mind, for weeks. He couldn't tell a soul, but he was certain his attempt to spread the food out to feed more people had led to the death of his son, and alienating his godson. When the false Kayra showed up at Camp Alpha, he realized that Tinya was still alive, but couldn't tell Daniel until he could find out whether Miriya's report was accurate. His campaign across the Southlands was actually a cover for the hunt for his son. His last hope died when Daniel & Tinya killed each other on the battlefield. That's why he hated that song about the two so much; every time he heard it, it would remind him of his failure as a father and godfather. Noel never knew it, but the only reason she was never arrested for performing it in public wasn't Bowie's presence, or even that Rolf was her guardian. It was because every time Leonard saw her, he was reminded of Daniel's child that Tinya lost when she was nearly killed in Brasilia."

"Why did he tolerate Petrie and the others, after that? After all, it wasn't until after the cyberjacking of the ASC Alpha prototypes was exposed that Petrie was finally taken down, years after the REF left."

"Petrie's boss wouldn't let him come to harm, until Petrie had gone too far to protect. You knew of the man - T.R. Edwards' pal in Robotech Research, that Dana finally took down after the fall of Monument."

"Zand... that sick bastard had his filthy tentacles everywhere. If I remember correctly, the evidence we temporarily had, after Edwards' original death, indicated they had something to hold over Leonard's head in order for him to follow their directives, had their plan to decapitate the RDF leadership succeeded. The child's location, or maybe even Tinya's, might have been the material referred to in Edwards' notes. However, the evidence disappeared one night, and it was followed shortly thereafter by memory gaps in those involved, that only started to fade once we were away from Earth."

"Well, the island's definitely out, in terms of a staging point," Marie noted to the others. There's a small town in the area that once was the capital, and the island's ecology seems to be fully recovered from the side-effects of the Zentraedi attack."

"Where should we land?" Alex asked.

"The east coast appears to have some farming and fishing activity, so the south coast will be best," Falco chimed in from the Beta. "If one goes strictly by the Hydra protocols, a meeting in an area of dubious security should gravitate toward the area least likely to be strayed into by civilians. That would put the best spot near the ruins of the community of Souillac, as it doesn't appear to have been resettled, though remains of the road to Port Louis appear to be present. That will allow us to travel quickly on foot, should we choose to contact the locals."

"Any other suitable areas?"

"None distant from the inhabited areas. The other areas south of the Cureipipe ruins are pretty much obliterated, or covered by new growth. Mahebourg was the site of an airport, pre-Zentraedi, but it appears to have been scoured clean of any sign of occupation by the tsunamis, and is close enough to the inhabited areas that our engines would be heard. Everything else is too far inland. It's over 80% certain, feeding in the data, that the Souillac area will be the first place the navy guys will look for us."

"Alright, then. That's where we'll go."

"Marie, something's not quite right about this," Alex commented flatly.

"Explain."

"There are too many mature trees and other things here, for a coastline left nearly lifeless by tsunamis. Not only that, the area looks too clean for a disaster area. Where are the downed trees and stumps? Or the wreckage from destroyed buildings? Concrete foundations are still here, but I don't see any of the other building materials that should have been left behind. It's as if someone came back in, cleaned up, and replanted everything."

"I agree with the Lieutenant," one of the scientists affirmed. "I've scanned the trees, and while they are planted in areas swept clean twenty years ago, they are as mature as plants three times as old, and show signs of being cultured in a lab, prior to replanting."

"How do you grow trees like that, Jason? For that matter, how would you transplant them?"

"There were experiments on using Protoculture chambers to recreate mature items, as well as enlarging existing ones. Khyron even used his captured chamber to enlarge livestock and other foodstuffs, to the point of even duplicating alcoholic beverages on a mass scale, even bottling them using giant bottles created by modifying Zentraedi replicators. All that was required was that the matter being duplicated by the chamber be organic in origin, and that a bladder be included in the duplication process to contain liquids. For that matter, the Invid can do any of this as well, but without all the hardware."

"So it could be something using Zentraedi tech, or the Invid?"

"Pretty much, except that the secondary growth under the transplanted trees indicates the reforestation occurred five to ten years ago. That sort of puts it out of the range one would expect for the Invid or some crazy Zentraedi scheme."

"That is, if the Invid didn't hit this island with God's own fertilizer, and sped up everything's growth."

"I'll take that under consideration, Alex. But, for now let's stay with Jason's data. Keep an eye out for 'Thunderbolt' - they should be arriving at any time."

"I think they're already here," Jason replied. "In fact, they've probably been watching us for a while."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, there's a pelican sitting just offshore, watching us. It's of a species normally not found in the Indian Ocean. However, an innocent looking sea bird would make a great disguise for a naval remotely piloted recon probe."

The pelican, noticing the attention, waddled ashore, up to Marie's feet.

"It's always the biologists that blow my cover," a voice jokingly chimed out from the pelican.

"Thunderbolt, I presume?"

"A representative, not the person actually at the mike the other day. And, if you think this bird is out of place, wait to you see what it launched from. We'll be coming ashore in about a minute."

Almost 300 meters offshore, an orca fin broke the surface, followed by a portion of its back. As it approached shore, it ceased moving like a sea mammal, and slowly rose out of the water, gliding on shore using what was probably a variant of the same Zentraedi contragrav platform technology reused by the ASC to make the VHT and hovercycle possible. Once beyond the high tide mark, it set down, and the section of back under the dorsal fin slid over, revealing a hatch, and the fin extruding rungs to become a ladder to the ground.

"Kinda big for an orca, isn't it?" Mike, the other scientist, commented. In fact, the faux killer whale was closer in size to a grey, right or humpback, than an orca, which was the largest member of the family of species that included porpoises and dolphins.

"It's not like there's normally anything in the water with it to allow an aerial observer to make an accurate size comparison, and if we'd used a whale species, someone might try to harpoon us," the first man out of the sub replied. "Even Zentraedi living on the coasts and surviving by hunting the sea life won't mess with killer whales - too many lost fingers and toes. Besides, this baby's so lifelike it even appears to be a biologic on sonar, when we have our transponder off. Major Crystal, I'm Lieutenant Commander Vince Gallery, _CVS Vulcan_ Special Operations Team. After Monument was destroyed, we reintegrated the SEAL Squads back into the navy proper."

"How is the _Vulcan_?"

"A little low on comfort supplies, but fully armed, thanks to Verne Station."

"Any others in contact with Verne? And how is the station faring?"

"_Demeter_ sailed all the way from the North Atlantic, and from what they told us, it wasn't a pleasant trip. They were caught on the surface after the fiasco with the Mexicans stirred up the Invid worldwide, and took some serious damage and lost 400 crew before they managed to convince the Invid that they'd been well and truly sunk be their attacks, off New York. After a couple weeks, they crawled up to the Grand Banks at very low speed, parked on the bottom, and sent salvage crews all over the Canadian Maritimes to salvage repair materials from what was left of our bases, and Quebec's naval bases and merchant marine facilities. Once they stopped most of the leaks, they ran under the Arctic, came down the East Asian coast, and put in at Verne two weeks before our last visit there."

"Two of the SLVs, _Jason_ and _Theseus_, occasionally report in, usually by courier. They report long range contact with some of the other ships, but only those ships with major damage or in need of replenishment have come in so far. _Atlas_ & _Chronos_ aren't in positions to make moves right now; _Atlas_, especially. They made a run under fire through the Bosporus during the invasion, in response to distress calls from the RVS _Iepatus_."

"That was the CVS prototype the EBSIS inherited from the Russian Navy, right?"

"Yes. When the Invid fragged the Soviets, their CVS was severely damaged and sunk off Crimea. _Atlas_ rushed in from the Med under intermittent Invid fire every time they had to surface, which was much of the trip from the Aegean to the Black Sea. By the time they'd pulled all the survivors off the Russian ship, the Invid had put a hive up on the ruins of Istanbul, and there was no way for them to get out, since the entire Bosporus run would have to be done on the surface. They went back and salvaged everything they could off _Iepatus_, and have been stuck there since."

"How did you find out about them?"

"They sent a Sea Spider and a couple of Catfish escorts to Verne to report in, and to request a supply shipment be sent using one of the pre-Zentraedi boomers that was refitted for cargo."

"Sea Spider? Catfish?"

"The Catfish is an aquatic spinoff of the Logan development program. The jury's still out on whether the name comes from it being the ugliest Veritech in the sea, or from the Logan prototype originally being named for one of the Grumman naval fighters of last century, before it was renamed in honor of Admiral Logan. They come in one and two seat versions, and are capable of up to 300 knots in open water in submarine mode."

"How did they manage the trip? Even at high speeds, it would have taken them days to go completely around Africa and across the Indian Ocean."

"That's where the Sea Spider comes in. It's got a cargo bay they were able to use as an airlock and hangar, so they could rotate crew into the Catfish. The navy originally couldn't get the ASC command to let them build the Spiders, but eventually the Navy took it on themselves to go against orders during the war, and build them anyway. Every command in the fleet was in on it, in fact, donating men & materials and diverting funds."

"How did they manage that level of insubordination without getting caught? And, what was it that required such extreme measures?"

"Oh, the fact that, while the Sea Spider is completely modernized and built using the latest human Robotechnology, it still looks a lot like the Zentraedi recovery vehicle it was originally derived from. It isn't a conventional submersible by any means. It uses the best technologies possible for hull integrity, while relying on contragravs for depth control, instead of using ballast tanks. It's safety rated for a depth of fifteen thousand meters, and that's only because that is the most we could set the test chamber to emulate."

"Isn't the ocean only about twelve kilometers deep at its deepest?" Jason noted.

"Yep. Some of Verne's co-conspirators are from Europa Base, and one of the plans prior to the war with the Masters was for the design to be taken to Europa for possible insertion into the oceans beneath the moon's ice. Verne's already sent several scientific missions in Spiders to the Marianas, a couple of which were able to remain on bottom in the trench's greatest depths for over a week, with a crew of a dozen scientists, all working under surface pressure in short-sleeve conditions. The arms can be outfitted for science or salvage, and the leg units were replaced by drilling gear. They've become vital since the Invid arrival in Verne's tapping underwater resources for the fleet-"

Suddenly, the nearby bushes rustled, putting everyone on alert. As they look on, two ungainly creatures emerged onto the beach from the brushline.

"What the hell?" Jason exclaimed. "Those things shouldn't be here."

"Alex, are those what I think they are?" Marie asked.

Alex barely managed a nod, still staring at the two dodos as they walked down to the shore.

**Chapter Seven:**

"Just when you're expecting a chicken in every pot, life just gives you the bird..."

- Anonymous 20th century comedian

"This is just getting too weird," Falco muttered; "and weirder still by the minute."

"Well, we can't just - NOT - do anything," Marie decided."While the trees alone are bad, having extinct species show up raises the threat level a bit. One of the reports from the REF brought back by Colonel Freeman told of experiments with extinct life forms that the Invid were conducting on Praxis - those experiments eventually led to the destruction of the planet. Commander, park your whale offshore, and meet us at the end of the road to the capital. Everyone else, pull your camo sheeting out of storage and cover those Veritechs - we're going to have to take a better look at this island. We'll take the Cyclones, for now, but be prepared to dump them at a moment's notice if you see signs of Invid."

Each of the four Veritech pilots slung a passenger onto the back of their bikes, and started down the barely usable road. Speed was kept to a minimum, not only due to the road conditions, but also from the fact that the passenger would be thrown off in a transformation move, and they wanted to keep road rash to a minimum. The low speed also allowed them to scan the terrain as they went along.

It soon became clear that the dodos weren't the only extinct animal present, as they came across some other birds along the way. As these birds were taller than a man, and eating several dodos they'd killed, it was decided that tarrying to study them was not a good idea.

"Elephant birds," Jason commented, from his position behind Alex. "They were native to Madagascar, not this island, and were extinct long before the dodo. Their unhatched eggs were occasionally washed out to sea, and found as far away as Australian beaches."

"What are they doing here?"

"Whatever or whoever cloned the dodos probably found some of their eggs too, to extract DNA. They'd make an excellent control method to prevent dodo overpopulation, but I wouldn't want to live with them."

After crossing half the width of the island, they'd made ten stops, each to collect samples of the local plant and animal life. A few other "extinct" animals were spotted, including some related to (possibly ancestral to) the dodo. But it was Mike, studying the plant samples, that made the first breakthrough.

"I've sampled several trees of one specific species on each of our stops. I ran them through the portable gene sequencer, and found that other than the saplings, there was a very limited population that the trees came from - out of sixty adult trees sampled, I've found only seven different gene sets, proving the older trees were cloned."

"What method was the cloning? Grafting? Coaxing clipping to develop roots?"

"Actually, the samples indicate Protoculture exposure during the tree's accelerated growth periods."

"Any particulars?"

"Well, if it's any consolation, the markers present in the chemical composition of the Protoculture indicate Zentraedi fleet stores, not harvesting on Earth. The Masters used a different conversion method than the transmutation process of the Invid, or from what was developed on Tyrol by the REF."

"Could this be an attempt by Zentraedi to farm?"

"Doubtful - why recreate extinct creatures through DNA resequencing when it would be easier just to clone existing livestock?"

"So, what do you think? Human experimentation? The local chapter of the Only Slightly Mad Scientists union?"

"At this point, I'm only willing to venture what it isn't, not what actually did this."

"Well, keep playing 'Cat in the Hat' - we'll eventually narrow it down to the probable source."

"I was thinking Sherlock Holmes, myself."

"Same doctrine, different implementation."

Finally, they began to enter areas of recent human use, the biggest evidence of which was the fence perimeter designed to keep the predatory elephant birds out, while having holes small enough to allow dodos to pass through. Luckily, the gate was unlocked, but had a sign in several languages (including Zentraedi) reminding the user to close the gate. There also appeared to be a sensor to indicate the status of the gate, but they couldn't tell if it was active, only that it was powered.

"Maybe this will get someone's attention."

"Possibly. Then again, if hunters use the gate often - and it does appear to be well used and maintained - it may only alarm if the gate's left open for longer than a minute or two."

They encountered their first person a few hundred meters down the road. A farmer was hoeing up some potatoes from part of his field. The tint of his skin wasn't exactly a normal tan, so Noel decided to be the one to approach him, on foot.

"Greetings, Warrior," she said, in Zentraedi. "I am new to the island. Who is in command here?"

The Zentraedi farmer about dropped his hoe, from the means and language of the introduction.

"Who are you, and what is your business here? And, don't step on my food."

"I'm from a scout unit of the Robotech Expeditionary Force. We're scouting locations that could be used as forward bases for attacks against the Invid occupying the planet."

"The INVID?" The Zentraedi immediately went from farmer to warrior again. "The Invid are on Earth?"

"You did not know? They invaded this planet a half-year ago. This is one of the few regions not under their control."

"So, that was the battle we saw in the sky. We had thought maybe that reinforcements or a second wave of the three-that-are-one had arrived."

"That war ended badly for both sides, over a year ago. Both sides ceased to exist as effective fighting forces, with both sides losing most of their command structure, as well as nearly all their combat personnel. How much do you know of the three-that-are-one - the ones who styled themselves the Masters of all Protoculture?"

"We have a few of them here. Mostly non-warriors, who had been drugged and sent to attack the cities in the far north. Their transport ran out of Protoculture, and made a crash-landing in the sea. Our fishermen brought the survivors back to the island, after the rage induced by the drugs wore off enough to allow their rescue. If any of us still harbored any idea of the Masters being anything less than madmen, that notion was swept away by the rescue. Only a monster would send totally untrained civilians into combat like that, drugged to produce a killing rage."

"So, can you take me to your leader, now?"

"Certainly. Let me finish this row of potatoes I'm digging up, and drop them off in the house. They're for my dinner tonight, and I have the feeling I won't have time to come back and finish this later."

He led the team into the heart of the large town, and rang the bell at town center. Shortly, people began filing into the square. One, dressed more formally than the others, approached them.

"Now, there's a uniform I've not seen in a decade," the man commented, referring to the REF non-combat white uniform that the two scientists were wearing, that differed little from the uniform used at the time of the SDF-3 launch.

Marie stepped up and met him. "I'm Major Marie Crystal Phillips, REF Vulcan Division; formally of the ASC Tactical Space Corps. With me are Lieutenant Commander Gallery of the CVS _Vulcan_ - no relation - and a team of REF scientists. You are the person in charge here?"

"Dr. Jean Dubois. I'm not sure what you'd call me - mayor, governor, maybe even benevolent dictator. I'm the founder of the Mauritius reclamation project, and brought about all you see here. What brings you to our fair island?"

"We had multiple objectives. The main objective was to re-establish contact between our two forces, that was lost due the invasion in March."

"Did the Robotech Masters win? We've been cut off since the big space battle last year."

"No. In fact, while they destroyed the Southern Cross High Command, Monument City, and most of the space fleet, they were in turn destroyed as a result of their desperation to regain the secrets of Protoculture they'd lost when Zor sent the SDF-1 to Earth. While they were concentrating on raiding the SDF-1 Memorial for the lost technology and Protoculture remaining there, a squad of Southern Cross ATAC troops managed to board their flagship with two high-ranking renegades from the Masters' fleet, and decapitate the Masters' command structure. Two of the scientists with us are also combat trained, and were part of that mission. They rescued General Emerson and myself from the Masters, as we were captured when his flagship had to be abandoned. The Masters had less than an hour to enjoy their victory, before their own deaths occurred at the hands of a renegade clone of Zor."

"Then, who was it that invaded in March?"

"Those of your people who are Zentraedi know the enemy well; your newest citizens from the Tyrolean fleet probably do as well, and have much to fear from them. The new invaders are the Invid, and they have taken Earth to replace their homeworld Optera, which was devastated by the Zentraedi on the Masters' orders, long ago. From what we can tell, they are able to sense if someone is a Zentraedi or Typrolean clone simply by the scent of the trace amounts of Protoculture in their systems, and kill them on sight, instead of enslaving them as they would normal humans. It's harder for them to detect someone who hasn't been size-altered in a couple decades, but most of the REF Zentraedi changed size at least twice during the mission."

A wave of murmurs swept through the crowd, then Marie continued.

"When Dolza's fleet was destroyed, and the Masters consolidated their forces for the trip here, the Invid became active again, emerging from the places where they had hid from the overwhelming might of the Zentraedi. They destroyed most of the worlds of the Masters' empire, sparing only those worlds that Zor had seeded with their food, the Invid Flower of Life, which is the basis for Protoculture - but Protoculture can only be made from flowers grown on two planets - Optera, and, ironically, Earth. No doubt that is one of the reasons why Zor sent the ship here in the first place, as he was trying to atone for how he betrayed his Invid friends, while under the Masters' mind control.

"By the time the SDF-3 arrived over Tyrol, the Masters had been gone over a decade, and the Invid were tearing the place apart looking for clues to the whereabouts of the SDF-1. The REF initially fought the Invid, to liberate Tyrol, then slowly fell into a civil war, between those that chose to fight the Invid in order to liberate the former worlds of the Empire, and other, corrupt, officers who sought to ally with the Invid in order to return to Earth to destroy both the Masters and the legitimate Earth government, then set themselves up as the dictator over all humanity.."

"If the Invid are here, who won that war?"

"The faction under the Hunters, who fought for the freedom of the subject worlds, won, but at great cost. The Invid Regent was destroyed, but by that time, the Invid had their own internal split, and the Regis had left him to travel to Earth, having finally found Earth's location. The REF sent several advance forces to Earth, including the escort fleet of the Pioneer Colony Mission, and another force under Colonel Jon Wolfe, hero of the Malcontent Wars." Even the Zentraedi respected Wolfe, as he had protected humans and loyal Zentraedi equally, including repulsing attacks on Zentraedi communities made by human bigots. "My own division of the REF is led by Colonel Scott Freeman, who took over Skull Squadron when the Sterlings retired to take care of their second child, and counts several Zentraedi and half-Zentraedi among his officers.

"Another, larger, REF force is in transit, but it will not arrive until next year, at the earliest. It was discovered that there is a flaw in Earth-built fold drives that compounded the time dilation associated with folds several dozen times over, so that a fold that may seem a day for those folding might take months or years, as opposed to the week that a Zentraedi ship fold unit would take. Had the flaw been discovered and corrected before the SDF-3 launch, it would have arrived before the Invid, and been able to return before the Masters started their war here. The problem was not isolated and a fix found until shortly after the fleet in transit departed for Earth, and it will take at least three more years before the rest of the REF fleet can be refitted with the new fold engines, which actually fold in real time, without time dilation."

"Earlier, Major, you said there were multiple reasons for your coming here. What were the others?

"We had been given the duty to scout for uninhabited islands for use as supply dumps and staging points, to allow us to attack Invid hives on the mainland from directions that would minimize the exposure of our real facilities to attack. If your settlement had failed, we were to arrange the resettlement of any survivors using navy assets. The biosphere of the island was also a factor, as we were to pick islands still recovering from the events of twenty years ago. Both your community and the restoration of its ecology are much too advanced to be considered a viable candidate for that use. How did you manage that, by the way?"

"Major Crystal, I was an REF candidate, but wasn't selected for the scientific mission. Still, I had a letter of recommendation from Dr. Lang in my pocket, for about any project I wanted. What I chose to do was recruit several of my fellow scientists, and return here, to the island of my birth. With the help of a community of Zentraedi that did not want to go back into space, we salvaged several downed ships for supplies and cloning chambers. We then recovered DNA from all over the island, especially old bone pits and tree stumps from the pre-colonial period uncovered by the waves. We even recovered elephant bird DNA from several eggs we found on the island, as we needed something to keep our cloned dodoes in check, as they had no predators other than humans, after we eliminated everything from the island that had helped render the dodo extinct before."

"Not exactly Jurassic Park, is it?"

"No. Most of what we did was restore the larger part of the ecosystem ruined four hundred years ago, working from actual remains, not fossils. But, the human presence on the island allows the dodo population to feed too well, if they get into our crops, to ever be controlled by food supply alone - hence the elephant birds. Even our domesticated dodoes tend to produce more than we can eat. Ninety percent of our Protoculture was actually used on the reforestation project, and we ran the tanks dry in 2027, with the last round of animal cloning. The chambers are in the two large buildings on the far end of town, if you ever need them."

"Be glad you ran them dry," Noel commented.

"Why is that, lieutenant?"

"If they'd been operational, the Invid probably would have sensed them, and blown the island below sea level. After Zor stole the Flowers of Life from them, they have become so possessive of Protoculture as to typically lash out and destroy anyone other than themselves using the stuff, unless such a mission had no chance of success. This is especially true for things like cloning chambers."

"I see. Back to the previous subject. Since the island is inhabited and green, you won't be using it as a base - but, will you be making any port calls to our island?

"I sure it can be arranged," Gallery commented. "That surplus of birds you mentioned - I'm sure the fleet would love to take them off your hands, for our consumption. Maybe even some breeding pairs, as well."

"I warn you, without proper preparation, the birds don't taste all that great to earth-born humans - not that our Zentraedi mind. The reason why the birds were hunted by the sailors was more due to their having no meat available by that point in the circumnavigation of Africa, not that it tasted all that good."

"We're about to that state ourselves, Dr. Dubois. Besides, I'm sure it's possible in this day and age to work a bit more on recipes, as you probably have done."

"True. We can hammer out the details of food shipments over dinner, if you and the Major don't have to leave immediately."

"Dinner sounds better, every minute. Once we bring the rest of our scout force in from the other side of the island, there will be ten of us."

"By all means, bring them in. I want to hear more about the REF mission, while we wait."

The next morning, the two scout groups left the island, the Veritechs to scout other Indian Ocean islands, the RDF sailors to return to their ship, with a supply contract in hand, and most of their dive airlock packed with fresh meat (and cooled to refrigeration temperatures). It was a small step, for sure, but the beginning of what would be the long process of liberating and reunifying Earth's scattered survivors.

**Chapter Eight:**

"By the end of 2031, we'd restored contact with the RDF Indian Ocean & Pacific Ocean fleets. In 2032, we began sending patrols ashore from naval assets, trying to link up with resistance cells. While this was successful in Asia and Australia, it failed miserably in the Americas, to the point that sea traffic was being completely negated in the Western Hemisphere, save in the hazardous arctic regions. Evidence since the war hints that Jon Wolfe may have been the one betraying the ships to the Invid, in his misguided attempt to prevent what he by then considered a hopeless war of resistance. But, of course, no records were left to show this to be more than a circumstantial connection, as (officially) all attempts to reach Wolfe's operation were lost to Invid attack (which was Wolfe's method of dealing with those he thought might stir up the Invid to the point of killing his men, after all). By the end of 2033, we'd all but given up hope for the resistance cells in South America, and North America was too heavily garrisoned to make inroads." - Scott Freeman, _Memories of the Madness_

**Radio Reports, 2032-2033**

(Alex Tyler): "Gawain to Green Knight. Have contacted Dreamtime. Bugs control the East Coast, patrol the north, and have a fortress at Perth. However, except for flyovers during hive troop rotations, there's little traffic over the interior. Dreamtime requests that visitors stop by his Aunt Adeleide's, on their way to Alice's Restaurant. The southern view is excellent."

(Marie Crystal): "Isolde reporting. Have made contact with local resistance leader, file as 'Yul Brenner'. Locals have been playing havoc with attempts to establish hive. Yul's team have ruined the last two attempts to grow the needed seeds and fuel for the conversion of the local outpost to a full hive. They request additional weapons, to try to destroy said outpost."

(SLV Jason): "Starforce to Green Knight. Bad news. Cigarland's infestation is at least ten times as bad as it was last year. Lost six flycatchers on scouting attempt, and had to kick in the artificial gravity and fake a stern-first sinking in the Puerto Rico Trench in order to break off from the swarm, and play possum for a week. My crew hates when we go perpendicular like that; I don't want to have to do it again.."

(CVS Demeter): "Big Momma to Nemo. Inspection of Japan completed. Few signs of life present; definitely nothing organized on Honshu. Failure of underground project not only confirmed, but worse than last satellite images. The crater from the collapse appears to have faulted into an active volcanic area, and the rubble from the collapse is covered by a new cinder cone. Hokkaido has a few villages, mostly in old resort areas. Kyushu and Shikoku are in better shape than Honshu, but not by much. There is some evidence that fighting between villages may be occurring on those islands, over salvage and resources. It looks like Fist of the North Star without the mutants and martial arts."

(CVS Atlas): "Mapcase to Green Knight. Our friends in the mountains love those RAT-1s you sent over - much better for fighting the Invid than horses, and you know how those guys love their horses. We've completed that bottom survey you asked for - not like we had anything more to do, stuck in here like this. Those coordinates you gave us, on the depth line of the old lake shore, have some interesting data. Core samples taken in the depression at the site show fragments of worked stone rubble, and radiological evidence of a ground burst hydrogen bomb, when the area was above the water line. Wow - and I thought you were sending us looking for Noah's ark or something. Once we did factored in decay rates, your site checks out as dating from between the eleventh and twelfth millenium BCE, and was filled in by river and lake settlement for a while, before the whole region flooded. After this war's over, I want to hear how you knew of this place..."

(Simon, New York Resistance): "Happy Feet to all parties. Last message for the foreseeable future - Invid have gotten rough on radio use in town. We're sending this by timed recording broadcast. The Invid are starting to take notice of the decrease in Eastern Hemisphere Protoculture production - so much that they're having shortages overseas. They've started shipping excess cell production to Manhattan, stockpiling it in the theatre district near their hive. They are mounting small hive-like structures on cargo vessels, and are impressing human sailors to run the shipments. They aren't that easy a target, but appear to be armed mainly for keeping the crew under control, and fighting off pirates. If we can get more details, we'll-" (transmitter destroyed at this point).

"Uraba City calling anyone who can hear us. The town's being evacuated by the Invid, they won't say to to where or why. Please help us!" (Message set on auto-repeat, and broadcast for most of a week. Examination after the war indicates the city had actually been evacuated a year before the transmission, and there were many dug-in Invid positions throughout the city, to ambush any group that responded to the distress call. However, due to events off Cuba and elsewhere earlier in the year, no RDF forces were close enough to respond, and fall into the trap, initially. It was repeated again the next year, to devastating effects on troops from Reorganization Point Kilo).

**March 2034**

"Gallant Base to Earth & Lunar forces. We're unsure if this can reach you through the Invid jamming, but we'd thought we'd at least try. Help is on the way. REF Mars Division finally arrived, and is now en route to your location. Give the kids a warm welcome for us."


	17. Book Four, Part Fifteen

**Part Fifteen: Into the Fire**

**Prologue:**

"Lisa and I have gone over it a dozen times, but we still haven't come up with any viable alternatives to the Council's plan. Mars Attack Division will be completed in six months; at least, the ships will be. What we are lacking is manpower.

"After excluding the diplomatic mission and other civilians, there are only 50,000 Terran humans left, out of our original 75,000. Of these, almost half are either too old or too young for combat, and half of the remainder are vital to the operation of the SDF-3. The war plans call for 60,000 men and women; 10,000 of these are on their way to Earth, as part of Mercury, Venus and Vulcan Groups. 25,000 are needed for Jupiter through Neptune groups; however, most of these are support positions that can be pulled from non-combatants and what few people the colonies can spare. That leaves 3,000 mecha combat personnel for Mars Division, but we need four times as many. Originally, the other 9,000 were supposed to be from our Sentinel allies, but those plans fell through at the last council meeting.

"The Karbarrans and Haydonites are still willing to help us arm; in fact, they're constructing the ships for the attack divisions (while constructing vessels of their own). However, neither will provide troops, after some of the latest actions of the council. We never even bothered to ask the Garudans; the logistics involving the hin were bad enough when just a few were on the Ark Angel. It would be impossible to supply them on Earth during the protracted war that will result from the liberation effort. As for the Tiresians, Zentraedi, Praxians, Spherisians and Perytonians, they are all too busy trying to rebuild their own societies in the wake of these first two 'Robotech Wars' to be of any help with Mars Division, though the Praxians and Zentraedi have both vowed their support in the final assault.

"'Final Assault?' That's a good one. We've only got Karen Freeman and Rem's word that the Invid are on their way to Earth, and Karen's already heading there herself, if the Korra'ti doesn't do anything funny again. But, we've got every reason to believe them. Unfortunately, we believe our improved fold systems will still take two years to reach Earth. We'll have no way of knowing how Mars Division fares before we reach Earth ourselves. We could be folding into a trap, or to a victorious Earth. We have no way of knowing.

"That is what leads us to the council's recommendation, something that I am only half-heartedly going along with - mostly because to not go with it would result in my removal from command, and put me even less able to reduce the effects of this betrayal of our base principles. To man Mars Division, we must follow in the footsteps of the Robotech Masters, and clone our troops. The major difference between what we must do and the creation of the Zentraedi is self-evident. We must let them keep their humanity, and instill within them the yearnings for home that we all feel. Therein lies the heart of the problem. To make them effective, we must imbue them with false memories; but how can we do to our own children what the Masters did to the Zentraedi? And we do mean 'our children.' In order to avoid confusion, each clone will be unique; either an adult clone of a child too young to fight, or a child grown in vitro from consenting parents. There will be no duplication. Lisa and I have decided that we will not be exempt, either. We will be giving both a clone of Roy, as well as the material to create his brother or sister.

"But, how can we explain it to them? How can we look our children in the face and tell them that they were created solely to go forth and die in our stead? It may haunt us for eternity, but it is our only hope of freeing Earth. It will take most of the Protoculture reserves we have left, as well as extensive reprogramming of the cloning chambers left behind by the Masters. I only hope that letting them live among us for the next six months will let them understand that we love them, and would go with them, if we had a choice. Heaven have mercy on us all."

Admiral Richard A. Hunter; log entry, 12/19/2029

**Chapter One:**

"Less than thirty percent of the 20,000 members of the Mars Attack Division were naturally-born Terrans (including colonists) and Tiresians. Of that fraction, the most famous of these was Lieutenant Commander Scott Bernard. He, and his fiancée Marlene Rush, were the children of scientists of Lang's Robotechnology labs aboard the SDF-3, and had grown to adulthood together, as some of the youngest persons aboard the SDF-3. Scott was already famous at the time of the Mars Division departure, having been involved in the exposure of Thomas Riley Edwards. His attempt, seen by nearly everyone on Tyrol, to tackle Edwards as the latter fled the council chamber (despite Edwards being at least twice his size), made him a household name among the REF that had established a semblance of a normal community on Tyrol. It led to him being put on the fast track to officer training, when this bravery was combined with his education, native intelligence, and natural leadership skills. When Mars Division finally launched, he was in command of the air wing of colonial pilots, assigned to guard the Horizont dropships of the Command Battalion in their descent to Earth.

"But, there were other important members of Mars Division, not as much by action, as by circumstance. These were the artificially created children of the REF, both clones of those born during the mission and ones created totally in-vitro from donor parents. The primary use of these personnel were as the fighter pilots of the larger ships of Mars Division, and the ground troops to be delivered to ground in the waves following Bernard's. Most never saw landfall, or disappeared shortly after reaching ground, forever lost in the chaos of the losses and betrayals of 2034. These included many who appeared in the documentary filmed in the month prior to the Mars Division departure, such as Michelle Penn-Baker, Kevin Burke, and Emerson Grant. Others made it to ground, either in Africa, or rarely, South America.

"Of those who tried for the primary mission objective of Reflex Point in the center of North America or the support base at Reorganization Point Kilo, less than a dozen of the eight thousand are known to have survived the 14 months between landfall and the full return of the REF. Of the forty Legios Squadrons of Mars Division, sixteen had no known survivors by the end of the first day, and fifteen more were at Point Kilo - most of those that survived to land there died in the Invid attack, or the later destruction of Colonel Wolfe's "Soldiertown". Five of the nine squadrons that had at least one survivor remaining on the eve of Reflex Point's fall did so by diverting to Africa or Indian Ocean landing sites, taking heavy casualties from the radical changes of their reentry vector (which had several of the units, including Bernard's, coming in on a contra-rotational approach) to a steeper angle. In all, less than 5% of Mars Division lived to see the end of one week on Earth. This is their story."

-Maria Bartley-Rand, prologue to "For They So Loved the World...: The Story of Mars Division"

**March 2034:**

It had been three long years since the Invid had arrived, and they were still firmly entrenched in the Americas. While Freeman, Fokker and their allies were making slow progress towards freeing Asia, Africa and Australia, the prospects for being able to take the fight to the Western Hemisphere was still so slight as to not be a major part of planning.

Time and again, thoughts turned to Mars Division. By the original calculations, that force should have arrived over a year earlier. But, they were using a fold equation that had been tested only in the labs of Tyrol, and the scaled tests of the labs apparently had failed to properly scale up. Of course, it was possible that they might arrive any day, or with time variances like those experienced by the SDF-3. Then again, it was also possible that something had gone horribly wrong, and the fleet might have misfolded to random coordinates, into a star (or worse), across dimensional boundaries (like the _Korra'ti_, whose engines had provided some of the data that the new calculations had drawn from), or just plain nowhere, trapped forever in foldspace.

Many of the same fears had been expressed about the Nichols drive equations, but those had proven to have worked flawlessly - and as a retrofit to both REF and Zentraedi vessels, at that. If only the REF had waited for the _Korra'ti_ to report, things would have been very different. But, they had to work with what they had, and at the time, it seemed that ship had gotten itself lost once again.

Finally, the day came when Mars Attack Division did arrive in the outer Solar System. The stations on Earth could monitor its arrival, knowing what to actually look for, but could do nothing to warn the incoming fleet of the unexpected dangers that awaited the fleet, as any such attempts would betray the locations of the resistance forces to the Invid. As the fleet moved further in-system, stopping at the Jovian orbital bases, the Factory Satellite (also relocated to Jupiter), and Mars, it was becoming all the more apparent that the outer system bases were providing the force with outdated, misinterpreted, or just plain wrong data, and these errors were quickly inflating the potential for the assault force to be slaughtered by the Invid on arrival over Earth.

Roy and Scott were discussing this in detail, in a hastily scheduled conference of the leadership of the African and West Eurasian resistance operations. In the three years since invasion, Karen and Noel had established a network of "safe spots", places they felt comfortable teleporting to and from, and this method was used to bring Roy (and a smattering of trustworthy non-military resistance leaders) to Scott's conference room in Africa Base.

"Is there anything we CAN do to warn then, without getting killed ourselves?" Scott pondered aloud, as usual challenging the others to interrupt him with the beginnings of a workable plan. "Rolf can't, as it would only lead to the exposure and destruction of Copernicus, and the later waves will need that beachhead on the moon for launching the main attack. We're in the same boat. Worse, hyperlight communications have been practically non-existent for the last two years, after the Invid discovered an REF probe broadcasting back to Tyrol from orbit. Since then, the Invid have been dumping some kind of jamming into foldspace, with a disruption radius at least as far as Pluto, that prevents broadcasts from originating in the solar system, and making reception difficult. And, as those of you who fought in the last war know, you need a space station or satellite to act as a relay from a planetary surface and translate the signal into a hyperspace one capable of interstellar transmissions. Right now, the only surviving uplink is the one in the Lagrange point over lunar Farside, and the conventional radio signals we have been getting sporadically from Copernicus indicates it's inoperable due to the jamming. They COULD launch us a satellite to link to them, and from there to the uplink, but it wouldn't be worth the risk for us and them as long as the uplink itself was being jammed."

"Can we try flying up to meet them?" one of the resistance leaders suggested.

"Anything we could launch, except for our Project Pan prototypes, would be noticed and shot down, just trying to make it to orbit, as we have only one Legios pair with that equipment, and the other prototypes are all types incapable of reaching orbit in less than an hour, unless we had some way of boosting to orbit quicker." Something about this last line inspired Roy, and Scott deferred to him.

"I might just have something for that at Gloval," Fokker said. "I don't know why they were given to the base, as it has no assets capable of using them, but one of the underground bunkers has six of the VF-1 single-stage-to-orbit boosters. They'd have to be modified to accept the Customs, and be altered even more to mate with a Vindicator, but they might do the job. The hard part will be meeting up with the assault waves - it appears from the telescopic monitoring we're doing of their Earth approach, they plan to send several of the waves in on a contra-rotational approach."

"Why the hell would they do that?" Scott knew from personal experience that such an approach introduced several additional layers of difficulty to a planetary landing, even on a peaceful planet.

"It puts them over target quicker, and makes it harder for the Invid to launch intercept mecha to catch them - at least, it would if the Invid were launching the mecha from the ground. There's been some reports that the Invid now have some of the clam-ship mecha carriers like they used over the Sentinel worlds, even though they didn't arrive with them. Our best guess is they grow the things in a specialized hive. They take a few months to build, but the contragrav system they use can be used to place three-hundred-plus Invid mecha in orbit less than a minute from ground departure - and that's per ship."

"That makes it even more important that we warn them off. The SFC-7000, Garfish and Horizon-T classes are all troopships designed for placing forces on the ground. They don't have the means to put up that kind of air cover easily, that would be needed to survive typical Invid kamikaze tactics. And, if they aren't the SDF variants with fold drives, they'll have no way of easily retreating, either. If the Invid didn't have those transports, the assault plan wouldn't need that sort of defense, which appears to be what the plan was based around. However, with the transports, the Invid can intercept any assault trajectory not being secured by combat ships of the line. At best, they'll have our two Salan Scouts with them, and that's not enough. Can your techs pull off the needed modifications in time?"

"Only one way to find out. I suggest we relocate the mecha that will be affected to Gloval immediately, and continue our planning from there, to save as much time as we can."

In the end, Scott decided to pull rank, and had the Valkyries' regular pilots sit out the fight, and go up himself. After all, the orders to divert would be best coming from the person issuing them directly, not passed on where the ship commanders could ignore them more easily. He put Marie Crystal (who had taken to only using her married name when out of uniform, much as Lisa Hayes did) in the other Valkyrie, as she was the most capable pilot normally not assigned to one of the mecha - well, other than Kayra, and she was to fly the Beta once it separated from Dana's Alpha, instead of Zor Prime. After all, Zor preferred not to fly combat, and might one day still prove the means to convince the Regis that she needed to leave peacefully. He would have preferred Karen, but she had her own job to do on the ground.

The plan they threw together while the boosters were modified, was simple - if a little disheartening. There was no way, now, that they could save all of Mars Division - the modifications took too long. In fact, they'd be lucky to save ten percent of the landing force, and any of the larger craft they warned would have to divert back to deep space, instead of trying to land, as they would have no place to go. However, they would, whether they survived or not, be a big enough target and distraction that the smaller vessels could possibly make it to ground.

The reentry course for two of the waves of attackers would take them over the area that Scott's network was strongest in - the Indian Ocean, and Africa. The third wave, carrying most of the purely ground mecha and the support personnel, was to reenter on a more normal, with-rotation, approach between the other two waves, aiming for one of the spots in the Americas chosen for its ability to handle the vehicles, and had been outfitted with some hidden stores and facilities for use in such a case. Nothing could be done to stop the approach of that wave, once it started, as it would be out of communication with the others. However, the African, Asian and Australian resistance groups were all going into the field, hoping to provide enough distraction to hinder the launch of ships after the west-traveling waves. But, they only had enough troops in Africa to hit one of the hives (and Karen was going with that mission, as its leader) - the other two would require help from above. As the thrust pressure from the liftoff eased, Scott put that part of the plan into action.

"Noel, think you can reach Dar or Maria telepathically from here?"

"I should be able to - less interference, and I can actually tell where the two Zentraedi ships are, now, to actually try to focus in on them."

"Go for it, then. Patch me in telepathically when you make contact."

{I've got Dar on the _Korra'ti_; The _Kramer_ is close, but still out of range.}

{Dar, can you hear me?}

{Scott, I was wondering if you'd make your presence known. Why haven't you attempted contact like this earlier?}

{Logistics. We needed a location for you to attempt telepathic transmission, and for that we needed to get above the atmosphere to get a visual fix, thanks to those emission reduction devices on your hull. If we had one of our telepaths with you, we could probably communicate on interstellar ranges, but we can barely do lunar ranges this way. I've got new orders for you and Maria; pass them along.}

{Will do - what are they?}

{There's no way the forces you're escorting can make successful landfall in the Americas; there's way too many Invid there. We want to divert as many as we can to friendly sites in the Eastern Hemisphere, but to do that, we need the northern two African hives hit by orbital bombardment. We're already taking the southern one with our ground forces - the two of you need to unload everything you got onto the other two, then bug out, once the Invid recognize who you are, and what you did.}

{Shouldn't be a problem; we're at extreme range for our laser armaments, holding in case the non-existent Invid capital ships show up. The mission commanders just can't seem to grasp that we're not facing the Regent's tactics, despite what we've told them. They won't let us shoot at the troop carriers unless they are already attacking us, which of course won't happen, unless we open fire. And, by the time those clams could get to us, we'd be folded out to safety.}

{Perfect. Not like you need to be any closer, when you're shooting at a planetary target a mile across.}

{If this works, I'll buy you dinner the next time you're at Io Base.}

{If I come along, is it still a deal?} Karen's telepathic voice linked in, from planetside. {After all, I already know I can teleport several people interplanetary distances, if they don't mind wearing spacesuits for one leg of the trip, since I don't have exact bearings for Io Base's interior. I thought I'd let you know; we've started our attack on the south hive. Reinforcements from the other two hives should be scrambling our way in the next few minutes, so you need to hit them sometime in the next thirty minutes, to catch some of those on the ground, and divert the rest back to look for their attackers.}

{It's a deal, Karen besides, I've got a surprise for the rest of your family when they get here - no peeking! And, maybe you convince these REF types of the differences between Invid factions' tactics, that I couldn't.}

{See you then, Dar.}

{Dar, Noel here - prepare your crew and inform Maria of the plan. We'll be dropping the telepathic connection now, and get to work on our part of the plan - watch for a high-power burst transmission from us as the signal to open fire. It will include the change of orders in recording form, in order to make sure you aren't charged with violating orders.}

{Understood.}

"Well, back to using our own voices," Alex commented. "I was getting a headache, just listening to that telepathic conference call."

"Ok, folks; one last burn from these flying fuel tanks to get us into an intercept trajectory - or more accurately, one that will allow that fight to catch up to us at its own speed, that we can then match to guide them in. Feeding the data to your computers now... burn starts in four, three, two, one - mark!"

Following Scott's lead, the other mechas' control systems kicked in the thrusters at the same time his fired, though the Legios had to alter its burn power to compensate for its much lower mass. At the end of the burn, the thruster pods jettisoned, then began their automated reentry flight to a recovery point in the Indian Ocean, where they would deploy parachutes and splash down to be recovered later in the week by one of the remaining fleet SLVs.

As the group of spacecraft grew closer, it was apparent they were under siege.

"All Mars Division forces, this is Colonel Scott Freeman of Vulcan Division. Abort the mission, if possible. Repeat, abort the reentry and return to the outer solar system! The Americas are too heavily defended to attempt landfall there. There are an estimated twenty million combatant Invid on Earth, most of which are in the Western Hemisphere."

"Repeat your ID! We are not picking you up on our scanners!"

"This is Colonel Scott Freeman, Commander of Vulcan Division, REF. Authentication code Hydra one-zero dash seven-two Tango. We are in a squadron of eight mecha equipped with experimental cloaks from Project Pan. We will be at your location in thirty seconds, so if you see anything strange, it's probably us."

"Roger. We are under heavy attack, and need immediate assistance."

"On our way - relay the abort order to all you can reach."

They found a flight of a dozen Horizon-Ts and their Legios escort fighters, battling against several times as many Invid. It was apparent that there had once been more drop ships in the formation, as at least two of the bridge section escape capsules were amid the flight, thankfully not drawing anywhere near the attention that the Legios and the intact drop ships were.

"Okay, Highlander, let's show the new kids how you really fight Invid!" Scott selected eight invid targets, then fired a full spread of sixteen missiles from the Custom's conformal FAST pack, that had been redesigned to not only fit with the orbital booster, but to not require jettisoning for reentry or atmospheric flight. Still, he wasn't going to take any chances, and would make sure the launchers were empty when it did come time to reenter the atmosphere. The missiles split into eight two-missile flights, and quickly, the targets disappeared in balls of fire, dropping the odds to something less than the previous Invid advantage. The Invid seemed to pause momentarily as a group, looking for their unseen attacker to no avail.

"Kayra, send the signal to the _Korra'ti_, then separate to engage targets."

"On its way."

As the Beta dropped away from the Alpha, twin lances of multiple beam weapons, each ship's weapons all converging to its single target point, streaked from deep space to hit ground in Africa.

"What was that?" The squadron leader of the Horizon-Ts' Legios fighter screen exclaimed.

"Your friendly neighborhood Zentraedi," Scott replied. "Once we heard their orders, we changed them. They were ordered to ignore Invid troop carriers, and only fire on capital ships - but the Regis DOESN'T EVEN USE capital ships. So, since it was too late for them to fire on the ships that launched these Invid, we had them take out a couple hives. The way is clear for you to abort to Africa, to our base there. We have bunkers capable of handling any of the Southern Cross spacecraft smaller than a Tristar, so we should be able to get your group undercover within minutes - just be sure to power down anything Protoculture as soon as you touch down - we've found the Invid can home in on low power active Protoculture emissions, even if underground."

"What about the rest of the fleet?"

"Most of the first wave is already destroyed. It's too late to stop the fleet that reentered going the other direction, toward your re-org point, but we're having the SFCs and the Zentraedi ships, along with any of the Garfish that can make it, back out to Mars. The orders that we sent for the Zentraedi to fire also included orders for the units behind your own, that can't get back to space, to abort to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. We have transport for the personnel and their mecha waiting there, but the spaceships will probably have to be abandoned there."

"But, the plans for the forward base-"

"They were fatally flawed. You'd be flying into a meat grinder. If you're religious, I'd be praying for the ones that reentered with rotation, because they're flying into harms way, with no way out. Their only hope is that the Point Kilo defenses can brought up in time to hold off the Invid, and that they don't waste their power trying any offensive moves."

The whole base was scrambling as the ten surviving Horizon-Ts made landfall. They'd lost one to direct damage from the Invid, while another came apart in reentry, but managed to separate its nose escape section. In fact, there were 4 of those landing, though getting the three that had lost their vessel in space reoriented for the steepened approach to Africa took some difficult, dangerous, work with the Veritechs, who had to use most of their reaction mass to help alter the path of the escape modules. Ironically, due to those modules being based on a lifting body design, they had a much easier time once in the atmosphere, than the intact ships.

"Get those dropships and mecha underground, now!" Scott ordered, staying airborne to watch the process in his shadow-equipped fighter. "Fokker's agents are reporting that we managed to catch the two northern hives with their shields down, but the surviving Invid from them are flying this way, in order to attempt to reinforce the south hive against our attack there. We can't take the risk of a pass close enough to detect our activity, so everything has to be locked back down in twenty minutes!"

"What about our attack to the south?" Marie asked.

"Order Karen to begin withdrawal procedures - same scatter and recover protocol as in '31."

As the Horizon-Ts began to disappear underground, the overhead hangar doors sliding closed, Scott finally ordered his squadron down, through one of the closing hatches in Battloid Mode - they could move the Veritechs back to their proper hangars later, through some of the connecting corridors, though it meant the Valkyries and Vindicators would either have to do the walk in Guardian mode, or be towed through in jet mode using runway tractors.

As he emerged from the VF-1 cockpit, he was met by the lead pilot of the dropships' fighter screen.

"Sir, just how bad is it here on Earth?"

"A lot worse than the REF expected it would be when they sent you. The entire enemy population are combatants, and there a lot more of them than the Regent ever had. Even if the entire REF returned at once, and everyone was a combat pilot, they'd still be outnumbered about fifty to one."

"And we were flying right into that lion's den-"

"Wearing hamburger underwear - and quite literally, too. The Regis' Invid, more so than the Regent's, use protoculture sensors for determining what is and isn't a valid military target. Probably, because it was the Regis whose actions resulted in the Robotech Masters getting their hands on it, and she feels a bit obsessed over that matter. Worse, the patent on the protoculture canister system used by the Alpha and Cyclones was canceled during the Masters' War, to allow as many places with still-functioning Zentraedi power cores to start cranking out the canisters for defense purposes. Since there was only one major ground action, and that the last hours of the war, there were huge stockpiles of the canisters after the war, and companies started manufacturing civilian vehicles to run on them. We can't even begin to count the numbers of civilian casualties that resulted, and the only time you see a non-military vehicle with a hybrid or straight-protoculture power system running on the stuff, it's in the hands of collaborators. There's even a few places the Invid still have that keep the canister factories open, specifically for supplying their slaves, and unconfirmed reports that some of the actual Invid mecha have been converted to use those canisters, as to make some use of the 'defiled' flowers the Zentraedi took, and to allow more of the harvest to be used for food, reproduction and other non-combat uses."

"Exactly what did happen at the end of that war?"

"The REF sent you here, along with Wolfe, Carpenter and my own force, without any knowledge of what to expect. The long travel times meant that most pre-launch briefing would be out of date on arrival, though in Carpenter's case, they didn't know about the time problems at the time of his launch, and I'm not sure how much stock Wolfe put into the reports, even though he knew. Carpenter arrived in the middle of the war, and lost his ship fighting his way through the screen of Masters' vessels over Earth - though he did have his ship take out one of the large vessels with a ram, after the crew had abandoned ship. That was probably the last the REF heard from Earth during the war, as his arrival, followed shortly by a group of volunteers from several of the out-system and in-system colonies, made the Masters start jamming FTL communications again. and take out the FTL link satellites for good..

"The Masters were in a state of desperation, needing protoculture to keep their civilization from collapsing, yet being held off by a much smaller force on Earth. Then, that desperation became greater still, as an Invid sensor construct, that resembled a nebula seen from afar, came in-system and spotted all the protoculture use. Monument ended up destroyed, and the Masters almost got what they wanted - until one of their own, a clone of Zor much like Rem, turned against them after being exposed to human civilization, and took out their entire leadership structure on a rampage through their command vessel - well, he wasn't alone doing it, as Dana Sterling was the one who had helped turn him, and was by his side the entire fight. He tried to blow up the ship over the Macross ruins, to destroy the Flowers the Masters had sought there, but the explosion only managed to sweep the spore form of Invid flower reproduction into the stratosphere, contaminating the entire planet.

"You launched about a month later, several days before my ship arrived. One of the survivors - a scientific genius improbably serving as a hovertanker - had developed a real-time fold system, and when Wolfe arrived a couple months later, they refitted his ship with the new fold controls, and used its test flight to evacuate most of the surviving Tyrolean citizens back to Tyrol - a good thing, too, considering the tales of torture and worse we've heard from the occupied areas, that have been done to Tyroleans and Zentraedi that have been captured by the Invid."

"Dr. Lang thought he had figured out how your ship made its odd folds - I guess he was wrong."

"If I didn't know better, I'd about swear there was more to it than mathematics. Two of the four folds that the _Korra'ti_ made, prior to the Invid arrival, were not aimed, but ended up to within a light-hour of where the crew either wanted to be or the people they wanted to reach, not a programmed point. And, in the second of those instances, the people they wanted to go TO were several dozen light-years from the logical place to fold to, if one had wanted to find them, based on the data the SDF-3 left with. When we compared Nichol's work with Lang's that was done during the SDF-3 planning stages, and then on Tyrol, it became apparent that Dr. Lang's research had followed a very promising branch of study that proved to be a dead end, while Nichol's self-trained mind avoided the logic trap the Robotech Research had fallen into two decades ago, because he didn't know he wasn't supposed to go the direction he did."

"So, you're saying if our launch had been delayed another week, we could have gotten here over two years ago?"

"Pretty much, though you'd have had to wait another month to refit the fold engines your fleet used to get here - I'm surprised so few of your ships were fold-equipped. I would have sent mostly fold-capable ships first, then let the later waves piggyback on fewer fold drives, as this advance mission would be the one most likely to need the ability to retreat."

"You'd have to understand the political situation back on Tyrol. Since you left, the political faction has grown in power again - my mother told me it's much like what happened to Churchill after the World Wars. The politicians seem to immediately forget what kept them free and alive in the first place, then start formulating odd ideas that only serve to make the next war happen quicker. They were actually talking about constructing weapons capable of creating an extinction-level event, to use on the Invid if they appeared to be gaining the upper hand again. All those who were so nice and ass-kissing toward the Regent are suddenly trying to prove their patriotism and are doing it in ways that are making them come off as tyrants. In fact, the staffing of this force was negatively impacted by their moves. Several colonies reneged on their promise of troops, after the REF demanded still more troops and supplies from them, and most of the Sentinels races that were preparing the fleet did the same, after the council started acting, in the words of Lron, 'like the next generation of tyrants on Tyrol'."

"And your force paid the price for it."

"In more ways than one. Certain things happened after you left, sir, that shouldn't be discussed in an open hangar. I can speak more freely about it in your office, with my operational wing commander present. His Horizon landed in one of the other bunkers."

"Then, by all means, get him, and have one of my officers escort the two of you, and anyone else he see the need for, to my office."

"Yes, sir."

While Scott waited for the men in his office, Karen gave him a telepathic report from the field of her attack on the southern hive. The flower plantations were destroyed, as were the storage areas outside the hive. The hive itself was heavily damaged, from Karen teleporting past the force fields and leaving a small reflex warhead rigged for timer detonation. The bomb failed to take out the brain or the power core, but it did shift the Invid activities from full combat to damage control and perimeter defense, allowing her Cyclone troops the break needed to retreat. The reinforcements made up of the survivors of the two destroyed hives would bring it back to near full strength, but minimal resources. Karen theorized that the hive would probably be abandoned as soon as the Invid could rebuild the Nile Valley hive, as it would have to import resources just to feed its inhabitants for over 6 months, due to the end of the growing season in the south, while a new hive could be built at the Nile in a couple months, just in time for the next flower harvest to come in.

Marie Freeman stuck her head into the office from the waiting room. "Karen done with you?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll send in our guests." She opened the door, and a major came in with several lieutenants in tow. It struck Scott funny that the Lieutenants all seemed about the same age, though he didn't remember there being very many children on the SDF-3. Of course, he thought, they were probably from the colonies.

"Major Andrew Turner, Twenty-ninth Transport Squadron, reporting as ordered, sir."

"Major, has Lieutenant Carter filled you in on the unfortunate timing of your departure date?"

"Yes. It's hard to believe, but I saw some of the dates on Tyrol-sent supplies that we picked up in the outer system colonies, so I knew something was different about the way they were shipped, than our own transportation means. Any word on the other squadrons?"

"I'm afraid the majority of the forces in the two waves that entered on your flight path had ceased to be cohesive units by the beginning of reentry. The last estimates we had were about 80% casualties for the Horizon-Ts and Garfish, and at least 60% for the Alphas. That estimate doesn't count the potential for additional survivors from separated Horizon-T bridge sections."

"Then, it's possible the casualty numbers are closer to 95 percent. Over half the dropships were carrying half a company of Cyclone troops each; one platoon per bunker. The plan was to have the landing site secured by over six thousand mecha troops, mostly Cyclones, by the time the force approaching over the Pacific arrived for landing. That force was carrying Cyclones for all ground personnel, as well as Hovertanks and Destroids,. Most of the Veritechs were being transported by the SFC-7000s that were coming in with our wave, so they either were destroyed in orbit, or are escaping back into the outer system, I guess. How many of them were lost?"

"All the ones in the initial wave. About half the ones in your wave managed to limp out, with most of the surviving Garfish. They've got a trip several weeks long, back to Mars, since they can't risk exposing the location of Copernicus Moonbase. Were any of your Horizon-T casualties troop carriers?"

"No, thank God. Your timely arrival saved the only one in our formation. Most of our cargo was part of the logistics train. Things like mecha parts, ammunition and additional Cyclones earmarked for either Southern Cross or Resistance use, based on what we found when we got here."

"How many of the transports lost were hauling cargoes of Protoculture cells?"

"Four of the six we lost. Of the other two, one had two automated CAD/M parts fabrication modules, and the other had a disassembled Protoculture chamber for Zentraedi sizing, and an energy clip mass-recharging installation."

"I figured as much - all were high-Protoculture targets. That's why they were hit first. The Invid are much better at homing in on Protoculture energy emissions than originally thought, confirming the report of Jack Baker from Garuda, that even hand weapons and P-cell hovertank variants on idle could be detected from hundreds of feet. It was in his report after he escaped the trap that caught the Hunters there, but it was felt by my fellow commanders that something else alerted the Invid to their presence - a conclusion I dissented from. We ended up confirming it the hard way, in the weeks following the Invid arrival here."

"I see. I went to academy with Jack - he might be a hothead, sometimes, but he's no fool. Unfortunately, too many times people couldn't see past the attitude."

"Out of curiosity, where did you get the manpower for this force? We've been trying to figure it out since they told us you were on your way, but they wouldn't tell us anything."

"I think it might be best to let my aide explain this, since he is personally involved. Ben?"

"Yes, sir. Colonel, my parents have told me much about your family, so you and your wife would probably be the best persons to decide how much of this should remained classified, and how much should be released for public consumption - well, public being your forces here, for now."

"Why do I get the feeling this is going to be complicated?"

"Because it is, sir. You see, the REF's relationships with the Sentinel races started to turn cold when the politicians declared the Invid conflict over, and demanded the REF be subservient to the 'diplomatic mission' once again. As such, the aid of many of our allies, ones we had helped liberate, was severely curtailed - after all, these self-same politicians were parleying with the Invid Regent the whole time of the Sentinels liberation mission, even to the point of betraying your force to the Invid, and branding you traitors. As such, many of the Local Worlds leaders could not trust them. Similarly, the demands of sovereignty over the colony worlds fell on deaf ears of the colonists themselves, many of whom left Earth because of the excesses of some of these same politicians that had weaseled their way into the diplomatic mission to Tyrol. In the end, only a small number of volunteers came from the colony worlds of Eden, Europa, Asgard and Shangri-La - not the brigades of regular troops the council had demanded. After all, Earth was under attack, and the whole purpose behind the colonies in Gloval's concept was for them to remain isolated as "lifeboats" of human civilization, should the Earth fall under attack again. Only colonies capable of self-defense were to establish contact and trade with Earth - which those four already had, at the time of the Masters' arrival over Earth."

"Providing troops on a large scale would violate their founding charter, if I understand correctly. And, of course, they are only a few light years from Earth - days travel time, by fold. Your force would have to stop to pick up any troops along the way."

"Correct. The council came to the conclusion that they could not count on colonial troops, so they would have to either send this force in with a skeleton crew, or they would have to make the troops they needed, and take any colonial volunteers to reinforce them."

"Make? As in clones? I can't believe Rick and Lisa would stand for it. Hell, they are on a world that is the prime example of just WHY it's such a bad idea!"

"They didn't have much choice in the matter - in fact, objecting too much would have cost them any ability to influence the creation and education of the clones. Those of us that are clones, such as myself, are far from being Zentraedi, as a result. No genetic augmentation was used; at best, we had some genetic defects corrected in the cloning process. Each of us is an individual - either a clone of a minor child, much like your own wife, or a child specifically created in vitro for the project. In addition, after our cloning and education, we were returned to our parents, where we lived for six to eight months during our additional training, and learning what it truly means to be human. The Admirals made sure that was a stipulation of the project. Some of us were told straight out that we were clones; especially those too close to their parents' ages to be a normal birth. Others, it was left up to the parents, with some of them possessing the memories of their donor sibling up to a point. But, I doubt any of us truly believed attempts to program us with a false life. We did, however, have a healthy respect, if not envy, of those who had lived a normal life to their physical age."

"I still think it's going too close to what the Masters did to their own people. Did any of the leaders provide genetic material themselves?"

"Only the Hunters; and they supplied both genetic material from their son, and separate samples from themselves to create a daughter. They weren't going to make others do something they would not do themselves, even if they were ultimately doing it under duress."

"And, what happened to the Hunter clones?" Marie asked, from her seat behind the new arrivals.

"They're in this room. You see, my name is Benjamin Dixon Hunter. The young woman sitting to the right of Lieutenant Carter is my sister. Carter is one of the volunteers from Mars, by the way - just don't make any Barsoom jokes at his expense; he's heard them all too many times before. Sis, introduce yourself to the Colonel and his wife."

"Claudia Marie Hunter," the young woman said to Marie. "Mom named me for both Claudia and you, as she didn't want to saddle me with a masculine name like 'Grant' for a middle name. Besides, we share some other things, don't we?"

"That, we do. Scott, considering this, and Karen's estimate that it will be the Nile Hive that gets rebuilt, I think we should transfer a fair amount of Major Turner's command to Fortress Gloval. The equipment is more needed there, and the clone nature of the troops won't get a second thought there."

"Yes - I wonder what Major Turner will think of the General?"

After Turner and the others left, Marie turned to Scott.

"I didn't want to say it in front of them, but there isn't going to be much hope for there to be many survivors at all of the other forces. Even less than what we predicted."

"Why is that?"

"They are clones. Not only are they unfamiliar with life on Earth, the Zentraedi never lose enough Protoculture traces from their system to keep from being automatically pulled from a lineup of humans. Even more human clones such as myself and Noel didn't lose those Protoculture traces for about five or six years of a totally human diet. All those clones are less than a year old - They'll 'smell' exactly like Zentraedi to any Invid that examines them - and you know the atrocities the Invid have committed against every Zentraedi they've captured." Marie had been the one who had commissioned the original investigation, using their spy networks. The lucky Zentraedi had been ones that died in combat - many others had been subjected to slow torturous deaths, experimentation, and many other barbaric treatments. "To the Invid, the REF clone troops would seem to indicate the Masters were still active - not to mention cause the Invid to associate the REF with the Masters."

"Dear God."

**Chapter Two:**

"Obviously, the next step for Vulcan Division was to begin searching for other survivors from Mars Division. While much of this would be looking for those who had to ditch in the Indian, South Atlantic and South Pacific, using the RDF fleet resources at their disposal, they would also have to attempt to at least reach Venezuela Base and the Colombia site selected for Point Kilo. The loss of two of the remaining five Shadow Vindicator prototypes while engaged in this mission, brought the rescue and recontact mission to a seeming end. Yet, it was the loss of those two mecha that would lead to the answers that they were sent to bring back, though the reports would take months to arrive, after Bernard's force reached North America."

-Maria Bartley-Rand, "For They So Loved the World...: The Story of Mars Division"

**May 2034:**

"Colonel, the High-Eye is in a stable orbit, and has locked its laser transmitter on our receiver," the on-duty electronic intelligence office reported to Scott.

"Good; run a full diagnostic on its comm, sensor and telemetry systems, and initiate the first picture sweep of the northern section of South America. Once the diagnostics are done, send a 'well done' to the _Korra'ti_ and our thanks for the satellite."

"Why not just tell me personally?" a voice asked, as the main vid screen kicked on, showing the captain of the RDF Zentraedi vessel.

"Dar, I didn't think these satellites had the capability to act as a communications satellite."

"They didn't, as manufactured. But, being launched from a starship, we figured that the need for the backup data drop capsules was reduced, so we replaced one bank of them with a second comm package to act as a relay station. However, for now, the system is locked into a laser-only safe mode, which means using it will require all the angles to be good for transmission, not to mention decent weather on your end. Sometimes, you'll be able to contact the lunar bases for a few minutes, and through them, the REF - but at other times everything will be over the horizon. After all, we did insert the satellite onto a intelligence-gathering orbit."

"Did you forward the info about Ben and Claudia to the Hunters?"

"Yes - they send their gratitude, and asked about others who were on the mission."

"What did you tell them?"

"That we just don't know. It's been over two months since Mars Fleet was massacred, and the one group we managed to contact, at Reorganization Point Kilo, went silent three days later, after they attempted to contact Venezuela Base."

"Any new orders?"

"They want you to send out shadow fighter patrols to South America, to try to contact Wolfe, and to scout Brasilia, Point Kilo, and any other location that survivors might try to congregate at."

"Sounds like a plan. We're about to lose the satellite over the horizon. Contact me again in two days, during the transmission window for you closest to the current time. Freeman, out."

"The satellite is now over the horizon, sir." the communications tech reported. "We'll get the results of the full diagnostic when it rises again to the west."

"Good. Anything else?"

"We do have a few preliminary shots of the target area; the _Korra'ti_ had it take some long range test shots of the Americas as it was attaining orbit."

"Anything of interest?"

"The resolution is about on a par with early 1970s equipment, due to the satellite being in safe mode, and the altitude, speed and angles, so we won't be able to get much from them - the pictures later this week will be more what you'd expect from a modern recon sat. The picture of the Venezuela region seems to indicate some activity in the area of Wolfe's base of operations, but I can't tell what kind of activity at this resolution. We can send it to data analysis, but there's no guarantee they'll be able to clean it up more. Hmm... this is odd..."

"What's that?"

"I'm running it through a quick-enhancer, and putting it up on the main screen. There appear to be some geologic anomalies in Colombia."

"Anomalies?"

"Damn... Colonel, it would appear that an area near the old Colombia/Venezuela border have subsided over a kilometer or more, for no apparent reason! That includes a stretch of mountain that branched off the Andes, that had to have dropped at least two kilometers just by themselves!"

"What do you mean, subsided? It's not like they could just disappear, or drop into the abyss."

"Well, something has happened - some areas are two to three kilometers lower than they were three years ago, and we have numerous hot spots of probable volcanic origin - though if that had been the cause of the subsidence, they'd be larger, and we'd be experiencing climactic effects rivaling those of Dolza's attack. They just appear to be symptoms of a larger occurrence, not the main event. Nothing in the geologic analysis program can explain it."

"Volcanic hotspots? Oh, Jesus. Karen, get here, stat!"

"You rang?" Karen replied, teleporting into the CIC.

"Look at this satellite image, and give me your opinion. Is that what I think it is?"

"Yep. There definitely was a Genesis Pit there. It appears to have been neutralized by something or someone, though. Personally, I wouldn't have wanted to have been in the area when it happened."

"What happened?"

"This isn't Optera, nor is it Praxis. We've found that the micro-organisms that exist even in deep crustal rock can act as a planetary immune system - sort of like the old Gaia Hypothesis. On Optera, the Invid could use the Pits without fear of adversely affecting their environment - in fact, that's where most of their Protoculture and Flowers came from after the Zentraedi left, as they were so in danger of overpopulation before discovering space flight from Zor's mission, that they had started making underground farms - most of which the Zentraedi missed. On Praxis, those native organisms reacted violently to the Genesis Pits, and caused planetary instability that led to the planet's destruction - a reaction similar to a fatal plague or ebola infection. Earth, it seems, just shrugged it off like a bad cold - well, maybe a non-fatal hemolytic spider bite would be a more accurate analogy, from the destruction."

"So, the pit's inactive?"

"Permanently. The size of the subsidence indicates that there was a large chamber there, possibly a habitat for experimental lifeforms. It would be prudent to avoid the area on foot, as there's no knowing what might have escaped from there - and if Praxis was an example, I'd be willing to bet on either Mesozoic or Tertiary fauna - that's either dinosaurs, or things like sabertooths and giant meat-eating birds, for those of you who fell asleep in science class."

"I'll take that under consideration when I brief Noel and Alex. Now that we've got an idea what to expect over there, we need to start attempting to patrol again, and look for signs of resistance."

"But will we try to assist the resistance we spot?"

"It's more a question of 'Can we?' than 'Will we?'. Currently, with the exception of a hit and run with the shadow mecha, any attacks would be suicide. The only way our conventional mecha could make the crossing is if we relocate one or more of our ships to the Atlantic full-time. We've not risked anything larger than a Sea Spider on the west side of the ocean since that fiasco with the Cuba and Hispaniola hives."

"That will change. We've almost liberated Africa. Our human assets indicate at most a dozen hives in this hemisphere outside Africa, and the biggest is smaller than the ones here. With luck, we might be able to take them out by year's end. That will free the ships operating in the Indian and Pacific Oceans up to assist with the Americas - not to mention surface running for the first time in three years. The Invid will begin to fall back to Reflex Point, as the most producing Eastern Hemisphere farm has never stacked up with the least producing one from the Americas, and will be seen as expendable. That was reported from the field, last year, and I managed to confirm it by hacking into the farm's organic computer with my telepathy during my raid on the south hive."

"I'm glad you have a battle plan, Admiral Freeman."

"You wanted my advice, Uncle. It's not like most of us have had much to do other than plan strategy for the last few years. Just be glad that the Invid put 99% of their forces into hibernation three years agp, to sleep while food stocks are built up to support them; otherwise, we'd really be in trouble."

Brasilia was a burnt crater once again; nothing could have survived, but they searched the area anyway. Venezuela Base wasn't much better. There were a few survivors there, mostly from Venus Division; but most of those that had been there had either fled after the destruction of a nearby farm hive by Colonel Wolfe (who was mortally wounded in the fight), or died when the Invid attacked Soldiertown two nights later. In fact, those they encountered were those trying to search the wreckage for the salvage they needed to survive in the barbarous state that the Americas had fallen into outside the direct control of the Invid.

Wolfe's body had been returned to the city by the group that had assisted him in the attack; a young lieutenant commander from Mars Division and four freedom fighters whom the latter had recruited (five if you count the spunky little red-head that tagged along with them). The death of Wolfe, who had "protected the town from the Invid all by himself" (this whole concept seemed very suspect to the Tylers, but they were polite and said nothing) was interesting news, but the young REF officer intrigued them more. Out of 20,000 troops, only 1000 had been officers. Of that thousand, three-fourths were clones, and had ranks of ensign or lower grades of Lieutenant (2nd Lt. or Lt. J.G., the only distinction between the terms being the former being a front-line combatant rank, the latter for ship crew or support personnel). Another 200 lieutenants were colonials or passengers from the original SDF-3 mission. Only about 50 officers were O-4 grade or higher, and only one had been the age range the survivors mentioned (too young to have been in uniform at the SDF-3 launch); Lang's godson, Scott Bernard.

They radioed this discovery back to Africa, by way of the satellite, and Scott ordered them to track down Bernard, who was probably heading for Point Kilo, much as they were. It was possible that he could shed some light on the fates of others from the mission.

"What hit this place?" Alex said to himself as they flew over the part of the Colombian Andes that had collapsed recently.

"Karen said an Invid genetics laboratory blew up here a few days ago," Noel replied.

"It must have been some lab. I'd have hated to be the one to have to wash all the test tubes..."

"Alex, evasive!" Noel cried out, suddenly.

Alex banked hard to the left, barely missing the luge brown creature that had darted into his path. "What the hell was that?"

"I didn't get a good look at it, to see if it had a tail or not. A Pterosaur, I think - a big one, possibly a Quetzal type."

"Pterosaur, as in Dinosaur?"

"They weren't dinosaurs - you should know that from your own biology classes. But, yes, they were Mesozoic life forms."

"Where the hell did it come from? Doyle's Lost World? And just how big was it?"

"Well, we are near the site in the book... but seriously, it probably managed to escape from the collapse - after all, the Invid had access tunnels to the surface, and it got out somehow - maybe even before the collapse. As for its size, it's got a bigger wingspan than an Alpha."

"Let's get out of here... God knows what other evolutionary rejects could be around."

"We don't have to worry about that much - we're almost to Point Ki- AIIEE!" Noel pitched forward in her cockpit, screaming, ripping her helmet from her head.

"Noel, what's wrong? NOEL!" but the only response he received were her screams of pain as her Vindicator dove toward the ground, out of control.

**Chapter Three:**

"Point K (Kilo): Valley in central Colombia designated as a pre-determined staging point for Mars Division in the event that the Invid command center (_Reflex Point_ - see) was in the American Midwest. Unfortunately, the planners for the mission could not have foreseen that a village had sprang up there in the decade they had been absent from Earth, that the locals had become friendly with the Invid (due to a mutual dislike of Zentraedi), or that their closest 'ally' (Colonel Jonathan Wolfe) had negotiated a truce (under some duress) with the Invid to sacrifice any active resistance to the Invid, in an attempt to keep his own force alive (and effectively neutral) until the REF arrived in force enough to actually win against the Invid.

Between the surviving Point Kilo force being too small for Wolfe to risk breaking his truce, their unwillingness to lie low to await reinforcement from space, and the local's discovery that the preponderance of the "human" REF troops were in fact Zentraedi-like clones (something that the Invid also detected), the site's fate was sealed, though the exact circumstances of its destruction are still argued to this day, due to the lack of survivors from any of the involved parties, to confirm or deny the various hypotheses."

- Entry from The Encyclopedia of the Robotech Wars (2050 edition)

"AIEE!" Karen screamed, dropping to her knees in the Situation Room. Scott ran to her side, as did his wife.

"Karen, what's wrong?" Marie asked; she sensed something was horribly wrong, but it was only hitting her like a migraine, in comparison to the much greater pain Karen was exhibiting the symptoms of.

"Burning! Fire! Breaking up... SCOTT!... Ariel... Marlene... GET OUT OF MY MIND!" With the last cry, Karen slumped the rest of the way to the floor, sobbing, in a state of incoherence.

"Marie, can you tell what just happened? Maybe, contact her telepathically?" It was a long shot, but it was worth the effort.

"I'll try... Oh, God... Scott, I think Noel's dead."

"How?"

"She's dead..." Karen sobbed, weakly. "I heard her scream out, with two other strange voices. The pain... it was too much. I tried to reach out to her, but our link is gone. Oh, God, it hurts so.. so much... I think I felt how she died. It was like I was suffocating while being burned alive."

"Scott, go get Shannon and Kayra. I'll stay with her, and get her to the infirmary."

"Okay."

"Karen, could you tell if Alex was okay, or not?"

"No, not directly. He seems to have somewhat of a natural mental defense, that he only lets down for Noel. If she isn't helping us link to him, we about have to be within line of sight to reach his mind. However, there was a lot of mixed emotions in that, that, that... One of them was a great loss. It's probable he died before she did - it would explain her death, as like me, she would have instinctively tried to teleport away from a certain death, unless something had disturbed or distracted her greatly at the moment she would have needed to jump away."

Marie lifted her cousin into her arms, and started walking slowly towards the exit, knowing that somewhere along the way, someone would relieve her of her burden. But, for now, Karen needed someone to hold her close.

Meanwhile, the presumed late Dr. Alex Tyler was pulling his still very much alive wife out of the wreckage that had been their two Vindicators. He had just barely been able to dive below her Veritech, go to Battloid Mode, and wrestle its dive into a less steep one, using his own flight thrusters. Even so, the resultant crash-landing resulted in both their mecha being total losses, and it was really a miracle that neither of them had more than bruises and other impact-related injuries (hopefully, no internal damage). He carried her to a tree a few dozen meters from the point where the two mecha came to rest, then went back to her mecha, and opened the storage compartment.

After punching in the numbers to alter the interlock positions to fit his size, he activated her Cyclone, then engaged its Battle Armor mode. He then began the difficult task of cutting into the wreckage of his Veritech, which was pretty mangled, having been in Battloid mode during the impact, and was still in that mode - at least what was left of it. Twenty minutes of cutting and prying finally allowed him to free his own Cyclone from its prison, and he turned his attention to less urgent matters. First, he removed the Disruption Cannon gun pods from the two wrecks, and lugged them over to a deep pool in a nearby stream - he had to make sure the Invid didn't find them, and discover how to counter their shield-busting effect. Next, he began stripping off parts of the two wrecks; everything from pulling the surviving protoculture cells, to salvaging a bunch of panels and parts.

This last part was hardly normal survival training, but he decided to give it a shot, since the Invid apparently never sensed their crash. Using the Cyclone's blades as a cutting tool, and the brute strength of the armor to bend metal and fold it in ways to secure pieces together without requiring welding, or too many fasteners. The end result was a box that he could sling between the two Cyclones, effectively turning them into one vehicle. The ability to steer and brake would be minimal, and he would be limited to idle speed, but it would allow him to carry Noel along while keeping her in a lying position, and where he could keep an eye on her condition as they moved. Even at the crawling speed they would have to go, it would get them to Point K in a couple days, and hopefully he could find stuff there (here dared not hope the forward base was still occupied, given the loss of contact with it) to further evaluate her condition, and what took her out.

Three hours later, as the last light from evening was fading, he pulled over to the side of the road, as Noel began to stir. She hadn't been hurt badly, physically, so that indicated to him that something more mental was the cause of their accident, and he would need her awake to investigate.

"Noel, can you hear me?"

"A-Alex? What happened? Where are we? What happened to the Veritechs?"

"You started screaming in pain; something about burning; then some names. Near as I can tell, the pain was so bad that you passed out. I was barely able to catch you as your mecha went out of control, and I actually grabbed onto it in Battloid mode and accessed the maintenance panel to shut it down, as we fell. By the time I managed that, we were too low for me to attempt to come to a hover, and we crashed. We made it through that relatively okay, but my mecha was tore up too badly between yours and the ground, and yours ingested so much junk from the ground into the turbines that we were lucky all the flying blades didn't hit us, when the hubs shattered. You were unconscious when I got to you, almost 12 hours ago. There doesn't appear to be enough physical trauma to be the cause, so the only thing I can figure is that you came under some sort of mental attack that kept you out for so long."

"I remember the start of the pain, but not anything after that. What were the names?"

"One was Scott; whether you meant your uncle, Bernard or someone else, I don't know. As for the other names you screamed, one was Marlene, and the other, if I heard it right, sounded like a name from Shakespeare. By the time you were screaming it, I was too busy trying to figure out how to save your life."

"I don't know any Marlene, so that's one we'll have to ask home about. Maybe Karen knows... Alex? Alex, something's wrong! My powers; they're gone!"

"Are you sure?"

"I'm positive. I can't reach your mind, let alone anyone else. Then, I tried lifting the edge of the sleeping bag with telekinesis, and it didn't move." Panic began to appear in her voice more, with each word. "They can't risk sending someone to look for us, and without a way to contact base, they couldn't find us even if they wanted to. And, without my teleportation, I can't get us home!"

Alex pulled her to his chest, and held her. "Calm down; we're still alive, and we have each other, after all. If anything or anyone is left at Point K, we can get help there. If you can pull yourself together enough to ride your Cyclone, we can leave at dawn, and get there by noon."

"I can try..."

Alex helped her out of the makeshift box, then pulled the box out from between the Cyclones and set it up between a couple of tree branches, to act as a shelter in the case of rain. He hooked their two sleeping bags together, then they laid down, to attempt to rest. It was a couple hours before dawn that they were awakened by the sound of approaching traffic.

"You hear that?"

"Yeah. It sounds like a Guardian mode Alpha, flying low and slow, as it would if being escorted by ground vehicles. Could it be that group we heard about from the survivors of Wolfe's town?"

"Probably; I doubt many other people would be using an Alpha so blatantly. I'll try to flag them down; you stay here and rest, until I make contact." Alex walked out to the middle of the road, and started waving his arms as the Alpha rumbled over the rise to the southeast. It settled to a stop about twenty meters from him, and a number of ground vehicles, some of which were obviously Cyclones by their engine noise, stopped behind it.

"Identify yourself!" the pilot of the Alpha demanded, over the mechas' external loudspeaker.

"Lieutenant Alex Tyler, Highlander Squadron, Vulcan Scout Division. Lieutenant Commander Bernard, I assume?"

"How did you know my name?"

"We were at what was left of Soldiertown, after the Invid got done with it, as part of a scouting mission to discover the fate of the forces that were intending to land in this region. Your rather unique combination of age and rank made it easy for us to identify you from the list of Mars Division personnel that the REF sent us. We were flying a search pattern looking for you as we flew towards Point K, as a matter of fact, when we had a situation that turned us into ground-pounders again."

"What happened? Invid?"

"No, we were using Vindicators; some of the Shadow-equipped prototypes. Some kind of psychic assault hit my wife, and she blacked out from the pain. It was sheer luck that I got us to ground in one piece, but the Vindicators are beyond repair. She's in our camp under the trees to your right. Bernard, according to your background, you knew her sister, Karen Freeman. How much of the relevant info you want to tell your new friends, I'll leave up to your assessment of them. Noel shared lesser versions of the same abilities, at least before the attack. She appears to have lost them from the trauma."

"Does she need a doctor?"

"She already has one; when we served in the Southern Cross, I was the medical officer assigned to the 15th ATAC, that both Noel and Dana Sterling were assigned. It was a position normally meant for a corpsman, but I got stuck with it due to my being blackballed from the Research Division for supposedly harboring too many 'pro-alien' sentiments - General Emerson used it as an opportunity to make sure the girls had a properly trained doctor in their unit who was familiar with Zentraedi genetics."

"We intend to reach Point K by daylight. You up for it?"

"Why not? That was the next stop on our mission plan, anyway. Help us load our Cyclones into your truck, and we'll ride along; she's had some rest, but is still groggy from the accident. I, on the other hand, didn't have the luxury of being out cold for most of yesterday, and shouldn't be driving."

Alex didn't get much rest, as the conversations started up again as they neared Point K, and they brought him into it, after he woke up as false dawn came. In the process, he learned a bit more about his new traveling companions, as they did of him and Noel. Rand was on a spaceship defense Battler Cyclone variant (equipped with a laser instead of missiles, to minimize structural damage), but was an Earth native. He had stumbled on an abandoned Horizon-T shortly after Mars Division arrived, and got caught playing with the salvaged Cyclone by the Invid, requiring Scott to save him. Rook, who was on a 038-LT Cyclone, was a local freedom fighter, who had always fought solo before joining the group south of Brasilia. Lancer was the only "official" member of the resistance groups that had been set up before the war, and appeared to have been regular duty military some time in the past. He seemed to be familiar to Alex, but given the conditions, he didn't have much of a way to investigate further.

In the truck with him and Noel were Annie and Lunk. Annie was in that vague area between childhood and adolescence, older than her petite size would indicate, but willing to play the innocent waif as needed to swing a scam to get anything she needed for survival. That she hadn't been victimized by some of the real scum left out there by this point was amazing - and a testament to her guts (for the conversation concerning how he met Scott and Rand indicated she was no stranger to the use of weaponry). Lunk, it turned out, was also former ASC, but was part of a maintenance unit that found itself fighting for its own survival, after the units it was supposed to support were destroyed in the April Fool's Massacre. The resulting survivor guilt, after all of his friends died in the next few months, had made him hide away, and only meeting Bernard and the rest managed to stir him from his years-long funk. Of course, eventually, it became his turn to tell the story of himself and Noel.

"So, the two of you were hovertanker, in the Masters War?" Bernard asked.

"Yeah, the 15th ATAC, commanded by the irrepressible Dana Sterling. Our list of commendations was long, exceeded only by our list of citations of the wrong kind. It was one hell of a group."

"In what way?" Rand asked.

"Well, Dana's predecessor in command of the unit was a womanizer of incredible proportions. He was lucky the war broke out, as he was about to be court-martialed and probably sent to military prison, for having sex while on duty, and some of the fallout from that. But, the Masters arrived before the trial, so they decided to keep him in uniform as a combatant, and busted him down to Private, from Captain, and sent him back to the unit as the lowest ranking person in the Squadron. From the way I've heard you talk about Annie, here, the best way to describe Dana would be as an adult version of her, with a matching increase in deviousness and attitude. In the first months of the war, before the first ground attack arrived, she spent almost as much time in the brig, as out of it. After that, she was always in trouble, but not arrested - until the end, where we went AWOL to stop the war. That's another long story."

"How long? It sounds interesting..." Rook asked.

"Well, to explain that, I'll have to also explain Noel's past, first. Noel and Dana, along with Bowie Grant, were raised together by General Emerson, after their parents left with the SDF-3 mission. Early on, Dana and Noel were pretty much opposites in their personalities, but Noel's no longer the wallflower she used to be, before discovering her true heritage. All three ended up in the 15th, and it was from them that a lot of our misadventures later in the war grew from, with both Dana and Bowie falling in love with high-ranking members of the Tyrolean hierarchy that would eventually defect to Earth, and Noel finding out that she was a clone of a mutant half-Zentraedi with psychic powers."

"Psychic powers? You've got to be kidding me," Rand commented.

"He's not joking," Bernard answered. "I knew her sister, the person she was cloned from, on the SDF-3 mission. Before anyone outside of the high command knew of her abilities, I used to have a crush on her, when she was always hanging around Uncle Emil's labs - until I saw what the full extent of her powers would do. It turned out she was always there because he was studying her powers - things like mind-reading, pyrokinesis, telekinesis, and the like. You say that Noel has the same powers?"

"Well, she did, before whatever caused her to crash yesterday. Since then, they appear to be gone. I don't really know if that should be a blessing, or a curse. If they were still working, though, we could have all gone to Africa Base, and joined up with the regular forces."

"Did Noel ever do anything really bizarre with her powers, like her sister did?"

"Bizarre, how?"

"Did you ever hear how she killed the Edwards clone on Optera? Cellular disruption while forcibly keeping him alive through using her healing abilities? It supposedly looked as if the flesh melted off him as it happened."

"No, nothing like that, though she did nearly die from teleporting the Masters' rogue Zor clone from the ship he was blowing up, because she didn't want Dana to be hurt by his death."

"Wait a minute," Rand asked. "Edwards clone? Wasn't the original Edwards killed around the time I was born?"

"I'm surprised you heard of him, Rand. Too few people didn't even among the REF - which made the appearance of two clones of him after that all the more frightening."

"Back before the Invid arrived, I was always reading history books. I've always loved history, and investigating the gaps in the more official versions of history."

"Do my ears deceive me, or does Rand fancy himself a historian?" Lancer jibed.

"Don't laugh; if someone doesn't pass down the events of the past, how will later people know what to not do. After all, they say those that ignore history are doomed to repeat it."

"And, he's a philosopher too - or at least he's read Santayana," Scott mused. "He's the story your textbooks don't tell. The first Edwards clone died shortly before the launch of the SDF-3, at one of the moonbases under construction, by Scott & Marie Freeman. He was, at the time, being set up to where he could one day usurp Leonard and Emerson, and take control of the Earth's defense - with the backing of those who were manipulating the anti-Zentraedi sentiments at the time. The second clone was insinuated within the REF, and was to attempt to do the same to the REF command - and he damn near succeeded, before Emil and Karen exposed his real identity during the trial of those REF that had went to the aid of other races that had fallen victim to the Invid. I tried to stop him from escaping, but I was too small at the time to be more than a speedbump. He ran to his ally, the Invid Regent, and would later take command of the Invid after the Regent died, before Karen killed him."

"That's unbelievable! Why would any human side with the Invid?" Rook asked.

"He hated the Admirals, for reasons unknown, and he hated the Freemans for killing him twice. But, those were personal things. He wanted to rule the Earth, using the Invid as expendable shock troops. If Karen hadn't melted him, this would be a lot uglier than it is now, as it would be an insane human leading the Invid here."

"Melted? You make it sound like that old Indiana Jones movie..."

"Rand, that's actually what Admiral Hunter compared it to - though a lot more disturbing and grotesque. Rumor has it that the Admirals and her uncle and aunt were there when it happened, as she was there rescuing them from Edwards, and they were so disturbed by it that it took them two months to get over it enough to speak to Karen again."

"I find it hard to believe that Karen would do that to someone. She seemed to be such a caring person," Rook commented.

"Where do you know her from, Rook?"

"Before the Invid came, at Brasilia, I was in bad shape, because of what the Snakes did to me. One of local defense groups between Cavern City and Brasilia found me, and tried to nurse me back to health. When it because apparent that I was suffering from emotional trauma as much as physical wounds, they sent me to Brasilia, and Karen was the one who took care of me, taking me to the deep facilities in the old base to train, and to work out my problems. As those of you who were there at Cavern City can tell, I wasn't quite as recovered from it as I thought, when I left Karen to rejoin the freedom fighters, and it took confronting my past to get me to realize that I had to cut myself completely free of those events to get on with my life."

"Alex, were you at Brasilia?" Lancer asked.

"Yes, while Noel was recovering from her near-death, and then for our retraining to REF standards."

"I was there, too. You were the one with the collection of ancient anime, right?"

"Yes, I was... now I know why you seemed familiar. You were the guy that came over from Japan with the New Tokyo forces, and left as part of the Manhattan defenses. How the hell did you get back to South America?"

"It's a long story. The short version is that I was on a theatrical tour when the Invid arrived, and they stuck me into one of the local fighters to attempt to cover the counterattack coming in from orbit, when I reported to the commanders down here. I ended up crash-landing in a farm community, and have been fighting with the resistance ever since."

"Now that we've had our little reunion, let's turn our attention back to the road. Point K is just a few more kilometers away."

"Explain Point K to me, again?" Rook asked.

"Reorganization Point Kilo is one of twelve places Admiral Hunter's planning committee chose to put down an advance attack base," Scott explained. "The particular point to be used was determined according to the presence of which, if any, enemy was present on Earth, and the location of that enemy. Before she, herself, left for Earth, Karen had told the REF command that the Invid were on their way to Earth, but the Admirals and the rest of the high command differed on whether we'd arrive to find a victorious but REF-hostile Southern Cross, the Robotech Masters, or the Invid. Even the possibility of none of these, but a hostile independent nation being the world power was considered - say, had the Neo-Soviets dominated world politics after a dissolution of the UEG. The idea was that one of the locations would provide a balance between distance from hostile forces, while being within acceptable range from the primary target - or, had there not been an enemy present, ease in setting up a cantonment with access to cities, and the eventual reduction in force size that would result from the return to Earth. Not counting the transport squadrons' fighters, two thousand Veritechs were assigned to the location, half of which are hovertanks and ground combat model Cyclones with heavier weapons loads, much like Lancer's."

"Scott," Rand asked, "I just thought of something. If you're bringing in a force that size, how do you hide it from the enemy?"

"If you mean avoiding contact with the Invid, in this case, you don't. What was done was that the main force for the base, consisting of six thousand troops, came in over the Pacific, avoiding the Invid defenses and sensors, while two other waves came in from the direction of Africa, to distract the Invid long enough for the forward troops to deploy."

"Should I break the news to him, or should you?" Noel asked her husband quietly, as the talk noise was too loud now for her to continue resting.

"Only the top-flight squadrons could be in the waves coming from the east, and its officers were hand picked by the Admirals. Their own children were assigned to the second of the Eastern waves. I was part of the first, though my unit had gotten separated from the main force, before its destruction."

"Oh, great," Alex muttered to himself, remembering the talks back in Africa with Ben & Claudia Hunter, and how the "top-flight" squadrons were mostly clones that had done the best in their simulator training, led by a veteran pilot from the REF or a colony militia. One could only wonder how much time the deadly distraction of the contra-rotational attack waves managed to give the main force to land, and how ready the lesser-prepared troops with the main force could have been to protect themselves once down. That contact was not known to have been made with Wolfe's troops, was a bad sign.

"I think this is it. I'm going to go ahead and check things out."

"I don't know about this," Rand said, mostly to himself, but it was apparent all of them had similar misgivings. Had such a force been present for the last few months, surely rumors would have gotten out.

"I don't, either;" Alex replied to the rhetorical question. "The Hunter kids are in Africa. If we hadn't intervened with our Vindicators a few months ago, during the attack, their entire squadron would have been wiped out.

"There were supposed to have been twenty squadrons assigned to Point K, according to our briefing," Noel said. "We can't count them out, since all we really know is the fate of the East-approaching forces."

"Don't worry about it, you two," lunk piped in. "Everything will be just fine. Leave it to Scott."

"I guess it won't brighten things up to mention that Point K did make limited contact after landing, not giving out any information like force size, that would aid the enemy, only to go quiet 3 days later."

"They could have lost their commo gear in a battle. after all, that's a traditional target in war."

"Yeah, quit worrying," Annie added.

"Here we are," Scott called from the ridge. "At least I think so. The entire valley's filled with fog, but my sensors can't be too far off."

The others pulled alongside him on the ridge, as the sun rose over the east-northeast side of the valley, being less than a month from the summer solstice. Slowly, shapes began to appear in the fog.

"Hey, look up there!" Annie cried out, pointing to what looked like a Destroid or Battloid on the far ridge. But, there was something wrong with it, not immediately apparent, from it being in silhouette.

""No!" Scott cried out, then continued in a hushed voice. "No, I can't believe it. This can't have happened! How is it possible? Six thousand gone; gone, without a trace. It can't be. Is anybody there?! ANYBODY?" He fired his H90 into the air, then dropped it as he slumped to his knees. The valley was clearing of the fog, now. Beneath the fog, they could now see what was in front of them - a field of wreckage. Blasted Horizon-Ts, burnt husks of Garfish SDF-escorts, Battloids twisted into positions not attainable by a functioning mecha, shattered Alphas in a line along a makeshift revetment. Bits of mecha, human and Invid, were scattered everywhere, showed that the installation had not gone down without a fight, but that it had been a lopsided one - too many of the mecha wrecks were in positions indicating they were inactive when destroyed. Scott would have no answer, save the silent sound of a graveyard.

**Chapter Four:**

"There have been many fictional characters in Earth literature with the name 'Ariel'. Shakespeare's character (from _The Tempest_) is probably the most famous, at least in overall fame, but it is the character from an animated film from 1989 that most people from the last 75 years, are more familiar with. The film was loosely based on a then century-old fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, but with a more happy ending than the original (which was, when you look at it, flagrant anti-free-society propaganda targeted at the young that they will never be anything other than what they were born, and shouldn't try to be - one of the last gasps of the tyranny by birthright era that brought on World War One by their greed). In the film, the mermaid princess Ariel sacrifices her past to become human, in order to be with the human prince she has fallen in love with, very nearly losing her own soul in the process.

"Dad found a DVD of the movie while exploring the ruins of the Barony of York; one of the independent nations that sprang up after the Zentraedi left, only to be crushed by the Invid. In fact, he found an entire video store that had been buried by a natural disaster (mudslides and flooding) in the months after the Zentraedi attack, and had been abandoned (due to there being much more pressing things back then to salvage, like food). He brought all the DVDs back home with him when he and Mom returned to the Southlands to settle down, and I was six by the time he got to watching that part of the collection, and we watched it together. I'll never forget the looks Mom and Dad exchanged when they heard the Mermaid's name for the first time. It was really spooky."

-Maria Bartley-Rand, _Band on the Run: Biographies of the Bernard Group_

Scott wouldn't eat; he was in the depths of survivor guilt, much as Lunk had been months before. But, who was going to bring him out of it? Even Annie and Rand couldn't make a dent in the funk he was in, and the group was starting to get worried.

"How is he?" Lancer asked Rand, after an unsuccessful attempt to get Scott to eat something, for the first time since they arrived.

"Catatonic? I dunno - Tyler here's the doctor."

"Call me Alex, Rand. Scott needs some time to himself right now. If he doesn't eat dinner tonight, then we'll need to figure out what to do. Once he realizes that we need him, he'll start to come out of it. None of us are the leader type; without him, we can't be as effective."

"Now, I wouldn't say that," Rand countered.

"Really? And I suppose you've only yourself to credit for surviving this far? Look around you; you're basically a loner; so are Rook and Lancer. Lunk needed a leadership figure to pull himself out of his despair; all of you were looking for something missing in your lives, and you saw it in him; otherwise, you wouldn't be here."

"Alex is right," Lancer joined in. "Look what we've accomplished so far, in just about two months. There's no way any of us could have done it without Scott."

"Yeah, I guess you're right..." Rand conceded. "It's just that, after being alone for so long, it's hard for me to admit that I'm not as independent anymore. Hey, I have an idea."

"What's that?"

Let's go out exploring the valley, and see what we can find that might get Scott's attention. There's bound to be plenty of good salvage here. I'll take the west side of the Valley." He straightened back up, and started walking toward his Cyclone.

"Wait up!" Rook called out. "I'll go with you!"

"This sounds like a plan," Alex said. "Lancer, get Lunk and check out the transports, and see what's left of them. There might be some salvageable mecha left as cargo."

"What are you going to do?"

"Though we had more than our fair share of space combat, Noel and I were originally part of a ground force. We'll check out the Ground mecha encampment. With luck, there will be plenty of missiles and energy clips for the H90s, and maybe some heavier gear, like EP-37s."

"What are those?"

"Cyclone-sized energy rifles. It's a smaller version of the E-20 used by some of the Southern Cross mecha as a pistol, only using a magazine feed instead of the original's power link to the mecha. It's about ten in the morning, local time - let's meet back here at two, to exchange reports. If one group finds something really special, it may take all of us to recover it. Pass along the meeting time to Rook and Rand, when you catch up to them, since you'll have to pass them anyway to get to your area."

"Will do. See you back here in four hours."

"What have we got so far?" Alex asked his wife, after they'd been searching the wreckage for an hour. This was a lot more difficult than he thought it would be.

"Two cases of charged Gallant pistol clips, and one case of Gallant rifle clips, with ten stocks for their use. We also have 6 more H90s in working order. For the Cyclones, sixty AP missiles, and one EP-37 without any clips for it."

"I was hoping my memory was failing me, and we'd found more than that. Hey, that looks familiar." Something in the distance ahead caught his attention.

"What are you talking about?"

"Look, under that broken wing section." He pointed to a smashed Horizon-T.

"Those legs sticking from underneath it? So what?"

"So What? I'd recognize those legs anywhere! Help me check it out. It might have been knocked over and abandoned."

"What?" she asked, taking off after him as he crawled under the wing.

"What was the biggest safety threat in ground combat, in our Southern Cross days?"

"Being in a cannon-mode Hovertank that got tipped over - you're telling me that's a VHT?"

"If it's not, you can shave my head and call me Dolza... Yep, it's a hovertank, all right! It appears to be in pretty good shape, all things considered. I have it turned back on, and running diagnostics. It's in cannon mode, and was knocked over by an explosion, if not the wing hitting it. You know how that funky transformation process made it almost impossible to go to Battloid mode if the tank was tipped over on the ground in another mode - that looks to be what happened here. Even if the pilot was okay after the tip-over, thrown or not, they'd have went looking for another ride, or someone to help him sit it back up."

"Which model? I don't think you want to have to scavenge ammo for it all the way to Ohio."

"REF Space model. All energy weapons, except for the Gatling, and that uses 35mm GU-XX ammo. Power plant is a standard RDF fusion plant with Protoculture control systems, just like the RDF and ASC non-transforming mecha, and the early model hovertanks like the one they stuck Sean in, when they busted him down to Private. After all, the REF model diverged from the ASC version around the same time."

"So, how will it appear to the Invid?"

"About the same Protoculture signature as a Cyclone - so, we can use it when using the Alpha would draw too much attention."

Two hours later, they'd cut the wing off the hovertank, and had rigged pulleys to pull it close enough to vertical (but still leaning on the other wreckage) to get into it, and convert it first to Battloid, then back to Hovertank mode, once they'd walked it clear of the wreckage.

"Just like old times, huh?"

"Yeah," Noel replied." Now all we need is Sean to flirt with the Regis and Nova to snoop around and annoy us."

"Funny.. But, at least I've got something better than a Cyclone to drive now, and we can haul our stuff back to camp in the rumble seat."

They headed back to camp by completing a circle, and the last stop they had planned looked like it could be their most important. A Horizon-T blocked their path, its aft section severed just aft of the Alpha interface, and the whole thing lying upside down. One bunker still remained attached to the wing, at a crazy 45 degree upside-down angle, between the bend of the wreckage and the way it was laying.

"I've got dibs on the bunker," Alex said.

"Afraid of what you might find in the crew area?"

"Not quite. Though, it is starting to bother me about how unprepared for an attack they seemed to be. There's no way that they should have been caught this flat-footed. The reason I want to take the bunker is because it will involve a lot of almost vertical climbing, and you're still not 100 percent back from what caused us to crash yesterday. In the Horizon-T, at least, you'll only fall 3 meters, at most, if you get dizzy. In the bunker, that could be closer to a 50 meter tumble down a slope, knocking cargo loose to bury and crush you, along the way."

"Good point. I'm going to go in through the Legios deck, and climb down through the ship. Give me a lift up before you park the tank."

As it turned out, they called for each other almost simultaneously.

"You go first," Noel said, "Though I doubt you can top my find."

"You sure of that? This bunker is part of the armory for the unit. Hundreds of crates of missiles and rifles, in the section closest to the ground. The middle section is Veritech missiles, in a safety honeycomb rack, and the back end of the bunker is a similar rig, with Protoculture cells. We could outfit a battalion of infantry with this stuff, plus supply another battalion of Cycloners."

"Great! Would you believe I've not even made it into the ship yet?"

"What's so wonderful about that?"

"My way's blocked."

"Blocked? You mean, the Legios is still mounted?"

"Well, the Alpha is, and looks to have some damage - but not anything major. The Beta is a total loss - looks like part of it went with the engine section when the ship got blown in two. I am going to cut my way into the Legios bay through the personnel airlock, and manually disengage the clamps, but I'll need you in the hovertank to flip the Alpha over."

"I'm on my way!" He jumped out of the bunker from a hatch ten meters off the ground, since he was in his Cyclone, and made the Hovertank cockpit in two jumps. He changed the VHT to Battloid mode, and scaled the side of the wrecked dropship. Noel was already cutting through the jammed doors of the airlock when he got there.

"Wow, the from up here is great - I can See Scott and Annie from here."

"What about the others?"

"Lunk and Lancer are back in camp already; either we're running late, or they found something good - I think the latter."

"How can you tell?"

"I'm using zoom, for one thing. They appear to be excited over something they found. I don't remember ever seeing Lancer so emotional, even back in training. Wish I could tell what they're saying."

"Stop watching them, and help me."

"Oops, sorry about that."

Within the hour, they'd gotten the Alpha freed from the wreckage of the Horizon-T and its Beta, and gotten it turned over. Noel ran its diagnostics, and a couple things came up red - probably the very things that kept it from being launched in space. It still ran well enough, and Noel transformed it to Guardian mode, and flew it over to a line of wrecked Alphas, where she and Alex quickly found the repair parts they would need to fix the problems (a couple of which were fixable almost immediately, as the components were of a plug/breaker nature, in the power system).

They made it back into camp at the same time that Lunk and Lancer were bringing in the Beta they'd found, and they told of there being another two Alphas back where they found the Beta. Rook and Rand returned as well, with a nearly naked girl they had found in the ruins of a nearby village (one that had been totally naked when they found her, apparently, from Rook's attitude toward Rand). Alex gave the girl a quick look-over, and gave her a clean bill of health (At least, the best he could, without instruments) physically - mentally, was another matter. The group of fighters all gathered around, after Rook managed to get the girl into some clothes, to try to figure out what had happened to her, to put her into her current state of mind, which seemed almost child-like.

"It's like she's just learning to talk, but she learns quickly, just by listening to us."

"It could be that she's one of the clone members of the expedition, who was traumatized so badly she's regressed into her mental state of the child she was cloned from," Noel ventured.

"It's possible; not likely, but it's better than anything I can come up with."

"The one thing we can be sure of is that it was the Invid that did it;" Rand stated.

"No argument on that point, though it must have been due to something she saw, not something physically done to her - there's not a mark on her."

Suddenly, both Noel and the girl collapsed to the ground, groaning in pain.

"What's going on?" Rand asked, only to be cut off by Alex.

"Oh, shit! Invid!" He pointed to the western sky behind Rand, where he had just seen the Invid fly over the valley rim.

"Lunk, you and Annie get these two to cover!" Lancer yelled.

"I'm one step ahead of you, "Lunk replied, grabbing the two and slinging one of them over each shoulder, heading for the nearby wreckage of a Garfish.

Alex ran to the VHT, and wasted no time in transforming it to its more powerful cannon mode, its huge ion gun emerging from its storage sleeve. He blasted the first two Shock Troopers with the cannon, providing the others the distraction they needed to get onto their Cyclones. Scott, however, seemed to be rooted to the ground, the arrival of the Invid not having made the slightest dent in his depression. Then, the girl that they'd rescued walked out into the open from the hiding place Lunk had taken her to. She was nearly hit by an Invid strafing attack; and, somehow, seeing that was what woke Scott back up.

With Scott's Alpha joining in, the battle was over in no time, although Alex had to go to Battloid mode and run over to protect Rand after a near-miss had sent him tumbling off his Cyclone. They regrouped, got the other Alphas, then, using them to lower the bunker that Alex and Noel had found to the ground, and took all they could carry from it. By the time they were done there, Noel and the still-nameless girl were recovering from whatever it was that had hit then, though Noel appeared to be the one recovering the faster of the two.

Now, everyone but Lunk, Annie and their "patient" had a mecha of their own to fly, in addition to their Cyclone. Lancer would rotate around between the Beta and either Rand or Noel's Alpha as needed (the Beta being unmanned and attached to Scott's Alpha, for the latter case), while Rand and Rook had been taught enough, by this point, to do simple flying in their Alphas (and were learning quickly). Noel and Alex could (and would) take turns between their Alpha and Hovertank, though for now, Noel was probably best kept in the VHT. Scott, of course, still had the Alpha Lunk gave him, though it was now freshly painted with his squadron markings (as was the Beta). Lunk had been trained by the ASC and REF to be able to use any of the mecha in their vehicle configuration, so he could be a reasonable backup in situations where he wouldn't have to change modes (they'd have to work on training him further, but he really didn't think it necessary).

Six mecha didn't seem like much, but it was a definite improvement over having just one. As it was, they probably would be lucky to get four or five involved in any single given action, until Rand got better at piloting (Rook had some simulator time, at Brasilia) and Noel's mysterious mental condition, apparently shared by the strange girl, improved enough for her to be trusted in the cockpit. The real question now was could they remain as low profile with so many mecha, as they were before, as the Invid had a bad tendency to hammer flat anyone who stood out (or stood up) to them too much.

**Sidebar: Lancer & Carla**

"One of the really oddball stories from the Third Robotech War was the star-crossed romance between Lancer & Carla. Odds are, had not been for the timing of the Invid attack, they would have never met, as Lancer had been sent to be part of the reserve-based Manhattan Defense Forces.(1) Fate, intervened, however, with Lancer's acting troupe being in Brasil at the time of the Invid arrival. A number of them were part of the reserves, so they immediately went to the nearest surviving defense base, for duty orders. As such, they were made part of the failed plan to make a strike against the Invid, before the aliens could become settled in. Instead of an Alpha, though, Lancer was assigned what was available, which was the ConBat transatmospheric fighter (a non-transforming derivative of the VF-X-4 program, put into production by the ASC too late to see service against the Masters), and added to a squadron being sent to cover the descent of the attack waves coming in from space.

"When the 'April Fool's Day Massacre' occurred, from the battle plan being ruined by a rogue nation attacking the Invid just prior to the operation start time, Lancer was at high altitude, covering a transport squadron's reentry, on their way to attack one of the South American hives. In the resulting battle, the force split, with the Garfish fleeing to space (thanks to their additional engine power), but the Horizon-T dropships having to force a landing anywhere they could, away from their intended target, with the crews attempting to scatter after touchdown, to link up with the resistance (2). Lancer's fighter took a bad hit, disabling his ejection system, and had to crash-land in rural southern Brasil, very close to the intended target.

"His landing location was about as from-bad-to-worse as one could get. Several locals had already contacted the Invid, and decided since both they and the Invid hated the Zentraedi, that making friends with the Invid would get them in on the higher levels of the occupation force. (3) Carla saw the crash, and went to help the pilot, regardless of the risk to herself. She brought Lancer into her home, but then had to figure out how to hide him, as within hours, the witch hunt for the "Zentraedi-loving REF pilot" had begun. While still recovering from the crash, he came up with the answer, in the form of Carla's cosmetics counter. Both worked furiously to get him made up as his character from a previous acting job - a female impersonator musician, from an off-Broadway play that had closed after a very short run. Together, they completed the makeup just as the lynch mob and their Invid overseer arrived, what was a normal three-hour slow makeup job, completed hastily by the two combining efforts, in an hour - not to mention that Lancer had to quickly alter some of Carla's clothes to fit.

"Lancer's experience playing a woman on stage allowed him to fool the local collaborators and the Invid, though he ended up having to perform for the locals, to make good his escape. From that harrowing ordeal the career of Yellow Dancer was born. He led a dual life for a while, being both Yellow and her "brother" (who acted as Yellow's manager). He even made his way back to Sao Paulo, and some of his performing troupe (that had also worked on the musical - and were ground forces reservists) joined him on the road. Yellow became famous across Invid-occupied South America, giving their group the means to go from community to community, as part of the 'bread and circuses' campaign of the Invid experienced with keeping a conquered population under control, from the remnants of the Regent's forces. Of course, where Yellow went, rebellion shortly followed. Finally, though, the danger got too much, and the group disbanded. Sao Paulo was in open revolt, and eventually the Invid could take no more, and destroyed the city.

"Lancer put the majority of the group on one of the last trains out of the city, before the Invid crackdown on all mass transportation. Yellow made a big issue of her brother and his girlfriend being sent away for their own safety (as some thought Yellow to be working for the Invid). Lancer bailed out of the train at the last second, leaving Simon in charge of getting the others to safety - and to not let Carla try to come back. Yellow would spend the next two years touring alone, using backup music the group had recorded, or more commonly as time passed, live musicians (usually with the resistance) who learned the music in order to get to play with Yellow. Lancer was rarely seen out of makeup, except at resistance meets. Simon and the others were to try to get a fishing boat along the Caribbean coast to take them across the sea to North America.

"They succeeded in doing so, eventually returning to their Manhattan base of operations (and even providing Lancer his band for the concert at the Battle of Manhattan) but Carla refused to go with them on the voyage - something Lancer would not discover until the arrival of the group at Deguello, the home town of the man whom Carla had married while on the rebound from Lancer - and, who was in most ways the very opposite of Lancer."

1. (With the devastation of the other boroughs, and the rise of Prince Harry's nation of York in the Ohio Valley, the survivors of New York City opted for using the borough/island name during the post-Zentraedi era, due to the stigma created by the anti-Zentraedi bigotry of the "Barony").

2. (It was one of these Horizon-Ts that Dad (Rand) later found abandoned in the deserts of Patagonia, and got his Cyclone, shortly before meeting Scott - the crew died as resistance fighters, caught in the trap that almost ensnared Scott, Annie and Dad, before Mom came to their rescue - their first encounter)

3. (Dad pointed out to me that history has many such stories, from certain native tribes that sided with the whites against other tribes in the Americas, to Germanic tribes joining the Romans to destroy their neighbors, to the Ukrainians that sided with the Nazis, after Stalin killed millions of the people there even before the Nazis arrived. In these cases, as in this one, the more powerful ally would eventually turn on or abandon the smaller one that betrayed their neighbor for revenge or power)

-Maria Bartley-Rand, _Band on the Run: Biographies of the Bernard Group_

**Chapter Five:**

"Sometimes, in order to survive, you have to choose between two evils. It's difficult enough, but even after making that choice, it's even harder to admit what you had to do, and let it go - or to stop yourself from progressing further down that road. I've learned personally the meanings behind the adages about slippery slopes and the Road to Hell..." - Donald Maxwell, 4/12/2036, war crimes trial (found guilty only on the least charges, due to mitigating circumstances involving the events tied to the major charges).

Travel north was turning out to be much more difficult than they thought it would be. Their origianl course was, for all intents, gone, blocked by active volcanos that began erupting (if not actively forming, in more than one case) as a direct result of the destruction of the Genesis Pit that Scott, Rand and Annie had blundered into earlier. The only path not blocked by Invid, it seemed, was to continue across the Andes to the Pacific coast, and from there travel north to Panama. The weather was hardly cooperating, either. At the altitudes they would have to travel, axial tilt and solar distance pretty much offset each other in climate effects, and it was just as likely to be snow as rain to fall from the skies, at any given time, even now in June (and they were only in the Northern Hemisphere by the barest of margins, anyway).

They had expected the conditions to have made the mining town of Deguello into a ghost town, as prior to the Invid, it had to depend on greenhouses and imported food to feed its people, even before the Invid attack chilled the global environment. Instead, it seemed all too busy, the most active town in a relatively normal way they'd seen since Scott's landing. Lunk, Alex and Noel chose to stay with the mecha, while the others went into town to see if there was a psychologist present who could help the girl they'd found at Point K. Besides, in the off chance that the community was surviving due to Invid ties, it would have not been wise for Noel to be seen, given her being half-Zentraedi, with natural green hair.

At camp, Lunk had everything under cover of the most suitable camouflage they had (in these rocky conditions, urban gray worked better than white, not that they had any winter colors), but it didn't help keep them warm, except in a small area around the portable heater Lunk kept with him during the repairs. As a result, Alex had dug out the limited amount of cold-weather gear they'd found at Point K, and set up one of the survival tents they'd pulled from the emergency supplies from the wrecked drop ships for Noel and himself. He'd had hoped for more than two parkas, but it was expected that troops would use their body armor for cold weather gear, and the assault was to have taken place in the spring, with little need for the gear (probably stored on a couple of specific Horizonts that got destroyed before arrival, given previous examples of Murphy's Law as applied to combat logistics). One of the things Scott and the others would be trading for was enough cold weather gear for the entire eight-person team (nine, if the girl continued to travel with them).

Noel was in a thermal sleeping bag within the tent, still trying to shake off the trauma from Point K, the crash, and whatever it was that assaulted her to cause the crash in the first place. Alex brought in lunch, in the form of civilian-make self-heating soup packs, that were an offshoot of military ration technology (but a lot more edible).

"Feeling better now?" he asked, as she drank the soup.

"A bit... Do you think they'll find someone who can help Marlene?"

"I don't know... Wait a minute; is that her name? Or are you just guessing, from what happened to the two of you?"

"I just know that's her name. Though, how I know that, I'm not sure. It's probably a side effect of whatever knocked us silly, and linked our minds."

"What about what happened at Point K? She wasn't being directly attacked then, at least not until she stepped out from cover."

"There's still that connection in our minds; not as strong as then, or anywhere near as strong as my links to Karen, or Dana, or even you, were. It's so chaotic, that it's overloading my ability to handle it. It's more empathic than telepathic. Fear, pain, confusion; I sense it all from her, and it hits me almost as hard as it does her. I'm just lucky that I'm more used to handling it, after my own brush with death. It's a good thing you're concentrating on the Alpha, for now. It will still be a while before I'll be able to safely fly; however long it takes for this bond to fade. As it is, I'm at least functional on the ground, now."

"You sound pretty sure of your diagnosis."

"The first thing of my old abilities - the only thing, so far - to return, has been what Karen refers to as our 'diagnostic program'. We can tell what's wrong with our bodies and minds, to an extent, but knowing the problem isn't quite fixing it, after all. And, since my self-healing abilities are part of what's non-functional, I would need Karen or Dana here to even attempt to fix things in my own head."

"Just as long as you're starting to recover on your own, it's a good sign."

"Speaking of recovering, you need to warm up. Get that parka off, and get in here with me. It's not like Lunk needs you to kibbitz during mecha maintenance - that's annoying enough to him when Annie does it."

"And, how do you plan to warm me up?"

"How do you think?" She smiled. "After all, this is our first time alone together in a couple weeks, and I'm sure that's part of the reason why Scott had us both stay behind, since we are the only married couple on the team - for now, at least."

"Tyler! Come in!" Scott's voice screamed from the handheld radio set up in the tent, waking Alex.

"What is it?" Alex replied, after disentangling himself from his still-sleeping wife. She was so worn out from the effects of the last couple weeks, she didn't even stir from the loud broadcast.

"We've got a situation here in town. We need backup, fast!"

"Give me a couple minutes to get dressed, and I'll be on my way. What's the details?"

"The local mayor has been selling fake maps, supposedly showing a way through the mountains. In reality, the maps are one-way trips into Invid territory, where the Invid shoot intruders on sight. Annie went with a family that bought a map, and she and the family will be killed if we can't stop them in time!"

"Start the chase without us, and leave this channel toggled on. We'll home in on you with the hovertank."

"Roger that. Hurry, once we save Annie, we're going to pay a visit to the Mayor."

"No problem with that, either. Tyler out." He started dressing, and woke his wife. "Get up, Noel. We need to back up the others in a fight."

Once both were dressed, both vaulted into the hovertank, and headed up the road into the mountains as fast as they dared, bypassing the town, and quickly catching at least the dust cloud left by the others' Cyclones. They were, at worst, a minute or two behind the chase.

"Owwww... That hurts..."

"What is it?"

"I'm picking up some sort of strange image. Annie's in trouble, and the others aren't there yet. But, what I'm seeing is some sort of monochromatic aerial view; not what I'm used to seeing if I'm having a vision of a future event or what someone else sees."

"Aerial view? You don't think that - nah, couldn't be."

"Couldn't be what?"

"Could you be picking up the image from an Invid?"

"I don't know how. It's possible, I guess, but why I'd be picking it up from the Invid instead of from someone I know, like Annie, is beyond me."

"I see the others ahead; they've started to engage the Invid."

"Nnnh... I think that was an Invid, after all. I felt a pain spike, and lost the image, when one of the Invid blew up."

"Looks like they got all of them... Hey, Scott! You didn't save any of them for us!"

"Sorry to disappoint you; but odds are more are on their way. I need you to be the rear guard for the trip back to town. Lancer will take the lead, while the rest of us stay here to ambush the next Invid wave, to buy the time for you to get back to town without being followed."

"Understood."

As they made their way back to town, Noel doubled up in pain, barely holding back from throwing up. "God... oh God... I think I'm feeling the Invid dying behind us! I can't imagine what Marlene is feeling, if she is getting it worse than I am."

"Hold on! They've stopped ahead, and Lancer gave a trouble signal. I'm gonna transform to Battloid, and cross over the bend on foot to see the situation from above." Alex made his way to the overhang, and monitored the action below. Amazingly, it appeared that none of the aggressors heard his approach, probably from the echoing battle sounds from further up the valley.

"What are you doing?" a woman was pleading, trying to reason with the leader of the armed force; presumably the corrupt mayor Scott referred to.

"They must be eliminated. No one can find out the truth and tell others. The town is at stake."

"No!" she cried. She interposed herself, but was thrown back, out of the way. "No, Donald..."

"This is the end of the road, folks," Donald said, as he and his thugs moved toward Lancer, Annie and the family she'd befriended.

Alex had seen enough, and leapt down to interpose the Battloid between the parties.

"That's far enough!" Alex shouted over the loudspeakers, loud enough to ring the ears of the thugs in front of him. A couple seconds later, Rand and the others jumped in behind Donald's men.

"Drop your weapons and move against the cliff face!" Rand ordered.

"You're flirting with disaster. If your battle hasn't angered the Invid enough, you using mecha this close to town will jeopardize everyone there as well."

"Which Invid would that be? The two large groups we trashed in the last half-hour, to save these people from your worthless map?"

"I don't think the mayor's seen organized resistance to the Invid before - just untrained fools being suicidal. He don't know us vewwy well," Noel giggled from the back seat, fighting off the pain with humor.

Lancer started walking slowly toward Donald. "You've been feeding innocent people to the Invid for what? A year? Two? I say it's time you get a taste of your own medicine. What do you think?"

"Go ahead, and shoot me, and you'll have to figure out the way across the mountains on your own. I've got a real map, from the Resistance as part of an arms deal, but the way is blocked by the Invid. The ones who traded the map to me never returned. But, the damned fools told hundreds of people about their 'path', assuming that they'd win. Since I couldn't convince people to go back the way they came, I had to do something to prevent the refugees from starving the entire town to death."

"You think that justifies what you did?"

"My town elected me to protect them from those who would destroy them - be it Human or Invid. You may not like my methods, but it was the only option available, other than closing the city, and shooting new arrivals that tried to force their way in. And, the town had to remain open, for the food shipments to arrive. No one trades with a city that won't allow traders in."

Lancer pulled his H90, and aimed it at Donald's head, and pulled the trigger. Alex didn't want to look, at first, but it was apparent from the lack of the sound of a collapsing body that it wasn't a direct hit. Indeed, al Donald lost was part of an ear, which is what Lancer was aiming at.

"All right; we'll take you up on your offer. But, I warn you; our large friend here is only a small part of our arsenal." Lancer walked over and leaned on the Battloid's leg. "You try to trick us, and your whole town is history, starting with you."

Carla went to Lancer, leaving Donald in a heap on the road.

"That's sad," Noel commented.

"What is?" Alex asked.

"Donald really does care for her, and his town. But, especially for her. The town is more a responsibility than anything. And now, she's gone."

"You feel sorry for that scumbag?"

"I pity him. He made what he thought was the best decision possible out of a list of ugly choices, and it cost him the one thing he loved the most. Despite that his decision killed many, how many would have starved, or died trying to complete the mission to open up the way out, without any prayer of success? He will keep his word. He'll do anything that he thinks might show her how much he loves her, even if it means his total ruination."

Four hours later, they were sitting around the uncovered Veritechs, packing the ammunition and Protoculture cells they'd gotten from Maxwell, as part of the deal. It was obvious the reasoning for his generosity was to allow them to protect Carla - at least, to everyone except Carla.

The family that Annie had befriended was heading back out of the mountains, now knowing that Bernard's group had made much of the area they'd left behind safer from the Invid (not to mention human bandits). With luck, they (and several other families that had now heard the truth of the passage, and the promise of safer lands back in the lowlands) could make it back to the ranch owned by the father's brother within the month.

Lancer and Carla, on the other hand, were in town, packing her things. The rest of the group was waiting for their return, and planning for the assault on the Invid fortress indicated on Donald's map.

"I still don't think it was fair to let him go," Rook muttered.

"Fair is a relative term," Noel countered. "Killing him wouldn't bring the dead back to life, and for so many to blindly follow, one group after another, with no trade coming back the other way, does not speak well of their intelligence. Was it fair for all those refugees to starve a small town, looking for something that common sense should tell you doesn't exist, or is at best, a scam? Ask around. I'm sure you'll find out that for months after the resistance group failed to clear the passage, Maxwell insisted that there was no route to Sanctuary, until the food supply started to get dangerously low, and that's when the map vendors started to appear. Just like that town you told us about, where you rescued Scott, Rand and Annie, the whole town was in on it, eventually. The difference is that the people of Deguello were letting people delude themselves to death, instead of actively trying to kill them. The escape seekers could have turned around and gone back to the lowlands at any time, prior to buying a map and following it. What would punishing him gain, other than turning an entire town against us, and maybe the entire REF?"

"Still, he profited from it."

"And, how much of that profit are we now carrying off? Does that lower us to his level, even though we are going to use the supplies to actually clear the mountain pass? My instincts tell me that this has changed him - or at least woken him up to what he's allowed himself to become. I've looked at the maps he gave us - they match up exactly with the maps we brought from Point K, except for the presence of the Invid base. The only problem is that we really don't know anything about the underground facility that the Mountain Squad built there, that the Invid are now inhabiting, other than its location. If we can remove it, then the route between the mountains becomes real. He'd be able to recoup it all - but would it even matter to him, without the woman he loves?"

"I think you're being overly optimistic."

"Only time will tell which of us is right... Unnhh...:"

"Noel?"

"Invid, heading this way... Lots of them."

Coming toward them were no less than twenty Invid, bypassing the town, and coming straight for their camp. It would be unlikely that any of the Veritechs could get airborne in time; even changing modes for a ground defense would have been difficult. Still, they had to try. Then, without warning, three jets shot into the middle of the swarm, guns blazing. By the time the first Alpha was airborne, it was almost over; all three of the UAV Alpha derivatives were destroyed, but so were most of the Invid, with the few survivors in full retreat even as Scott and the others began to train their weapons on them.

"Those must have been Maxwell's fighters, that Lancer told us about," Scott said. "I wonder why he used them to save us?"

"He didn't," Noel replied. "He used them to save Carla."

Fifteen minutes later, Lancer pulled into camp, alone. Carla had understood the meaning of that sacrifice, and realized that deep down, her feelings for Donald were still stronger than the long-ago relationship with Lancer, and returned to town. As they loaded the last of the supplies into the APC, they pondered Noel's assessment of the situation. As with Wolfe, they had once again encountered someone doing wrong things, but for what appeared to be a justifiable, if not right, reason. How many more times would they encounter such dilemmas themselves, on the trip to Reflex Point? And, will they ever have to face such a situation themselves?

**Chapter Six:**

"The weather contrasts during the trip through Colombia were mind-boggling. We experienced sub-arctic, temperate and tropical weather; passed through mountain blizzards, deserts, plains and jungle, all in the confines of what had been a small nation, over a couple months' travel time. It only further shows the dangers of stereotyping a locale by its perceived/advertised weather, as all of this took place within ten degrees of the equator, it what was (by the calendar, at least) summer, in the Northern Hemisphere. - Alex Tyler, Interview 6/8/38.

They reached the fortress hive a week later, and it was two more days before they figured out a plan that had a chance of working. When Rand and Annie blew the hive Brain, it nearly knocked both Marlene and Noel unconscious, but Noel recovered from it in a matter of a minute or so, and was able to drive the hovertank through at a speed that kept up with the others. When the reflex core of the hive blew, though, she was almost incapacitated again. Alex, by this time, was reasonably sure of the cause and effect connection to put forth his theory of what was occurring. The theory was that both Noel and Marlene were psychic sensitives, and that they had been hit by some sort of assault, intentional or otherwise, that linked them into the telepathic transmissions of the Invid. Presence of the Invid, and their usually unintelligible minds, caused pain; the deaths of the Invid caused them to feel the pain as well. It might be accidental; but it could also be a weapon meant, if it could work on humans, to deter humans from attacking the Invid, through the effects of the mental feedback.

Trying to avoid the Invid after blowing the fortress was almost impossible, but they had managed to lose their trackers temporarily by detouring into the desert along the old Colombia/Ecuador border. However, the detour also put them into a sandstorm, shutting their movement down due to the effects it was having on their vehicles. Damage to their drinking water tank put them in even worse shape, as they attempted to wait out the storm in an old mine they'd stumbled across. It was Noel and Marlene who felt the effects of dehydration first, due to their condition causing abnormal breathing patterns and sweating. Rand had cut a cactus earlier, that no one had paid any attention to, and when he pulled it out to try to use its juice to revive Marlene, the others' short tempers (given the situation) jumped him for not mentioning it earlier, so he went out of the mine to look for more cactus - in the middle of the storm. He quickly lost his bearings, despite his eye protection, and stumbled around for minutes before tripping into a depression, and knocking himself out. His search was over, but a much stranger trip was beginning.

Rand woke up to see a dragon flying off with Marlene - which quickly led him to the conclusion he hadn't woke up at all, which was a pretty decent grasp of logic for someone who'd knocked themselves out in a fall. A mere thought allowed him to conjure up his Cyclone, and he took off in pursuit, passing through dream versions of the events of the last three months, rescuing Marlene along the way, and having her agree with him that it was some sort of dream, before she was snatched away again. They then found themselves in the presence of - Noel?

"Brave warriors, you are a quest of the heart, to free yourselves and the universe from Shadow Wing. The shadows of hatred threaten to engulf us all; you and your companions must find it in your heart to stop it before it consumes all our races. Love is eternal, and from love springs hope. It is this power that must be called on to free us all from the embrace of the Shadow. Do you accept the challenge I set before you?"

"I do, I guess." As he replied, one by one, his companions from the real world appeared around him. Scott appeared as a knight in shining armor, seated in his Alpha. Rook was dressed more like something from an old fantasy paperback cover, more for looks than armor, sitting astride her Cyclone. Lancer was also on his Cyclone, but his costume resembled that of the lead from the old Minmei movie. Lunk was in his truck, in an outfit that looked to be a cross between leather armor and mechanic's coveralls, and Annie was dressed like a barbarian princess, at his side. Alex and Noel were on their Cyclones as well, and surprisingly were in their old ATAC armor, minus their helmets.

"Go, and prove yourselves worthy of my faith, by defeating this minion of the shadow."

"If you're here, who was that?" Rand asked Noel.

"This sure is a strange dream I'm having," she replied. The characters are asking questions I actually know, for once."

"Your dream? Listen, I think we're all sharing this dream. At least, Marlene and I seem to think that already. Maybe you guys are just joining in, from falling asleep. If the forty-foot woman wasn't you, than who was she?"

"It's my sister, Karen. It has to be. But, from the way she was acting, maybe she's dreaming too. This is beginning to feel like an old Robert Englund movie."

"And Shadow Wing is Freddy Kruegar? Get Real... Well, there's the dragon, again. Let's go save Marlene!" He drew he sword hat had magically appeared with his own costume (something similar to an Errol Flynn Robin Hood getup), and kicked the Cyclone into gear.

"Wait!" Noel cried. I don't think violence is the answer. After all, violence is how we got into the situation we're in."

"Then, what can we do?"

"This is a dream, right?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Focus your positive emotions into your blade. Let your love and friendship power your weapon; together, we can produce a light that no shadow can withstand."

"I'll try."

"As the old movie said, 'Do, or do not; there is no try.' Weapons alone cannot win this war, any more than they won the previous two." Rand and the others raced ahead of the dragon, then gathered in a circle around Noel. As they drew their blade, and concentrated on it, each blade began to glow with a different color. Rook's blade was red, matching her outfit. Annie's was orange, while his own blade was a golden yellow. Alex's sword was green, Scott's blue, Lunk's the deep purple of indigo, and Lancer's, pure violet. Each raised their weapon in a salute, a laser-like beam from the tip. They united the beams above Noel's head, as she drew her own sword, crystalline-clear, and thrust it into the union of the beams. In her sword, the beams united into a pure white one, that launched itself into the heart of the dragon.

The dragon screamed in pain, then shattered as if glass before fading completely away. Marlene was lost in the light was well, but reappeared as the light faded, at Scott's side. The odd costumes had mostly gone away, but the clothes they now wore seemed to be idealized versions of their normal clothes, not the actual version (which were starting to show the full extent of their overuse, after months). Marlene, though, broke this pattern, wearing a dress one normally associated with a formal dance or wedding party, a pastel pink, with way too much ornamentation than one would have on a normal dress.

The giant woman, presumably Karen Freeman, appeared once more.

"You have done well, my children, though most of you will have no memory of this dreamworld; only those of you truly asleep will remember much of it at all. The crisis point of all Mankind is fast approaching, and it will be the nine of you that have the greatest potential to swing the results of this battle of fates for good, or for ill. There is more truth in what I am about to reveal to you, than most know, and it is likely you will not grasp it yourself, even after you awaken. The world holds many secrets; this one was once considered to be too much for the world to handle, at one time, and my own cousin erased it from the recording I made; but I still remember it all. The vision came to me in the form of a poem; these last two parts are what she erased.

"In their attempts to escape their woes

The children of Tyr return home as foes.

They molest this world, now called Earth

The world that did their ancestors birth.

All is not lost, though we must still fight;

We must bring our brethren back into the light

We must end now, what our ancestors began

And reunite here, the races of Man."

"But, the Masters have been defeated," Rand asked. "Haven't they?"

"The evil that the Robotech Masters committed, still lives on in those that they victimized. Until they come to terms with the evil they have committed, in retribution for the Masters' crimes, they are still under the influence of the Shadow. And, one must remember - the Masters are but the descendants of only one of the two factions that destroyed Mankind's first civilization, burying it under the oceans and twelve thousand years of sediment and erosion. The fate of the other faction will come to you, in time - if you are able to set aside your own prejudices and keep your own minds open."

By this time, the dream realm had faded to black, and on Karen's last words, she, too, faded, leaving everything dark in her absence. The next thing Rand remembered was being pulled back into the light by Rook, from where she had found him, half-buried by a dune in what had once been a trough between dunes. By the time they were back in the cave, Rook was half-convinced Rand had lost his mind, from the sheer weirdness of the story he was telling of his dream. Though, she too knew she'd had some sort of bizarre dream herself, in the nap she had taken in the cave; she just couldn't remember any of the details, other than it made her feel weird. In fact, all those in the cave had fallen asleep after realizing that it would be too dangerous to go after Rand while the storm still raged, only for them to all awakening to find the sandstorm gone.

The others weren't much more accepting of his vision, Alex actually suggesting the all-too-accurate diagnosis that Rand was suffering from the aftereffects of Flower of Life Spore exposure. Rand could tell, however, in the eyes of Noel and Marlene, that they knew what he was talking about - or at least, a lot more than the others did - they were just not going to say anything about it.

"Scott!" Karen cried out suddenly, sitting up on the couch. She had been babysitting Scott & Marie's twins, and had been too tired to walk back to her room after their return, and had stretched out on their couch, to sleep over. Her uncle and best friend (slash aunt by marriage, slash genetic cousin) heard her cry out, and ran to her side.

"What is it, Karen?" Scott asked. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I - I had this strange dream, about Noel and Alex, and Scott Bernard, and a bunch of the people we trained at Brasilia. They were fighting a dragon, to save a kidnapped princess."

"Uh-huh..." Marie nodded. "Karen, I think you should lay off the pizza before going to bed."

"But, it seemed so real..."

**Chapter Seven**

"Rook and Lancer had referred to me as a 'Tom Sawyer' type on several occasions in the Southlands. So, it was ironic that a one point, prior to our departure from the south, the Protoculture supplies ran so low that we had to forego wings and wheels in favor of rafting down a river - and guess who got stuck building the rafts?

"Tom Sawyer, indeed! (well, by that point I was closer to Huck, in job duties, but Tom got the girl. so I didn't correct them) I got even with them the entire trip by pulling names from the novels and using them. Rook became 'Becky', Lancer became 'Huck', Scott, the 'dauphin', etc., though it kinda threw me that Lunk actually answered to 'Jim' without a second thought. (It wasn't until Nevada that he came clean to us about his real name, having gone by an alias for almost three years, and having been nicknamed 'Lunk' even longer). The only people I didn't pull out names for were Marlene and Noel, and that's because there were a lack of prominent female characters that weren't old ladies in the books.

"On top of it, I kept finding ways to twist stuff into Twain contexts, especially if a pun resulted, and by the time we reached Urabá City, half the team was threatening to throttle me if I made another joke. On the bright side, it got them to stop their own 'Tom Sawyer' references. Now, if I could only figure out where Noel's 'Grizzly Adams' and "Macgyver' references come from?"

-Rand, _Notes on the Run (an informal history of the Bernard Resistance group)_ - 2046 textbook version.

Selections from the mission log of Alex Tyler, (LCDR, REF Vulcan Division) (mostly audio recordings)

4 July: "We began following the Atrato River north, today. Our pre-war maps show that, while it runs parallel to both the Pacific and the Andes, it flows into the Caribbean - but, given the geological effects we still se signs of locally, from the collapse of the Invid Genesis Pit almost a thousand kilometers to the east, we can't be 100% sure of anything. That collapse, and the rock that went missing in the excavation, has caused several volcanoes, not to mention a reawakening of the geology in the entire region. Areas that had been stable since before the Spanish came, are now suddenly active again,.due to the pressure releases - and we are near the junction of multiple plates - The Caribbean, Pacific, and both of the American plates. The Pit and its destruction probably fundamentally altered the equilibrium between the plates. I wish we could get a couple thousand geologists here to study it, but that will have to wait.

"Scott's current plan is for us to follow the river (which appears to have MUCH more water in it as normal flow, than it did pre-Zentraedi), to the city of Urabá, a post-Zentraedi city of about a half-million people, that the Invid terrorized for most of a year, before finally enslaving and moving the survivors - at least, that's what we think happened, based on calls for help in 2032 that we could not answer, due to the logistics of the time. Most of its population was comprised of resettled survivors of North America and Europe, for the river mouth was one of the areas that escaped destruction by the Zentraedi, and was more easily converted to farmland than it would be to restore the ravaged lands to the north.

"It was one of the power bases of the early ASC, before that organization was assimilated into the RDF. As such, it had a strong CDU presence, and smaller bases for the specialty Tactical Corps and Navy branches most needed in the region (Jungle Division, R/EP, Marines, wet Navy, and the Mountain Division that would have moved into the now-destroyed Invid fortress, had it been completed before the Invid arrived). We lost most of our protoculture reserves when an Invid attack overturned Lunk's truck (luckily, the truck itself didn't go over the cliffside - but the loss of most of the cargo hurt), so we're hoping that somewhere in all those military facilities, there will be enough Protoculture to fly us over the Gulf. It would also mean abandoning the truck, unless we go slow enough to carry it - which probably isn't that great of an option - but, neither is leaving behind most of our belongings, and stuffing Lunk, Noel, Marlene and Annie all into the Beta.

"Perhaps we can find another option, like a sailing vessel. Powered craft tend to get blown out of the water, Lancer says, and that some of his friends and Resistance associates found out the hard way. He's not all sure about the sailing craft, either, but the survivors of that first attempt to go north (which only made it a mile offshore) actually managed to make it over the horizon when they made their second attempt, using a catamaran. If we're lucky, those people made it, and will be able to assist us when we reach their original home bases of the Piedmont and Manhattan.."

5 July: "The Invid found us again today, and the resulting battle used up all of our remaining Protoculture, forcing the Alphas to land using emergency battery power. If we had to fight right now, we'd be limited to our Cyclones (which have mostly-depleted cells, since we had put the best ones into the Veritechs), and my tank (which is primarily fusion powered, with the only Protoculture being used in the control systems - rated for 20 years of normal, intermittent use). Even though Lunk's truck is armed, the plant growth in this valley would make it near impossible for it to use its missile rack or autocannon effectively, as there are no roads, and scant few clearings. We were actually hauling it by hand, when the Invid attacked.

"With few other options, Scott's actually come up with a rather radical plan - RAFTING the larger vehicles downstream to the city. If this works, it will probably go down in the history books with Hannibal's elephants. Rand is the one doing the actual construction, while I get to make like Paul Bunyan with the hovertank, felling and placing the trees for him. Even so, it will be hard just to find the right types of trees to use, as some of these are too dense as green wood to float, even without cargo. Even balsa has this problem, I found out. This is made all the more spooky by the Invid roof over our heads. I'll describe it later, during my next rest break from being a lumberjack - and I'm not OK..."

(A few hours later)

"...I came back to camp, and found it empty, with a lot of barefoot footprints around; more than we could possibly make, and too many of the wrong sizes of feet. I was beginning to panic a little - Noel was one of the missing, after all - when Lancer returned to camp, clad only in his briefs. When he told me of what had happened to the others, I couldn't help but think he was pulling my leg. I won't go into it here, because I doubt anyone would believe it, anyway.

"Now, about the river valley, as I promised to describe it earlier; the description now plays into the situation at hand, so there's no more putting it off. There was a hydro-electric dam being constructed here, at the time of Dolza's attack. The 2028 map we have of the area listed it as never having been completed, but it also listed the area as unsettled wilderness, as well. Both descriptions are wrong. It seems that the dam was well over 90% complete in 2011, and that a Malcontent band took up residence shortly afterward. Over the next six years, they kidnaped or hired engineers, and captured slave labor, to finish the project. In fact, it appears that most of the parts used to finish the dam were salvage from other dams wrecked by Dolza's attack, mostly spillway gates and the electronics to open and shut those gates and the ones to the turbines. The workers actually started taking pride in their job - sort of a concrete 'Bridge over the Rover Kwai'. The Zentraedi disappeared suddenly in 2018 - possibly after Karen's warning to the Malcontents about the rising threat of the Invid; General Fokker might have info on them, seeing how many of the Malcontents went to ground in Tisiphone to await this war with the Invid instead of face destruction by the RDF & ASC. They took the engineers with them, leaving the labor force, and a forest of giant trees that they'd created with a Protoculture chamber to conceal the dam construction.

"That concealment held up quite well, but the labor force, most of whom were tribal or rural village types, regressed to a hunter/gatherer society, living in the giant trees, where the engineers had built a small town not unlike that of the Ewoks of _The Return of the Jedi_, or the elves from the movies of the Tolkien Ring books. They were happy in their isolation, except for one small detail - a lack of women. Occasionally, they'd raid villages up to a hundred kilometers away, just to kidnap and bring back a couple brides. The population is still about twenty to one male, seeing as the raids rarely brought back more than a few, and many women tried to escape. Then, the Invid came.

"Thanks to the reservoir, conditions were near perfect for Flower growth, and the Invid improved them further by ROOFING the entire valley over with something not unlike their hive wall materials, for over at least fifty kilometers. Unlike the hives, the roof is permeable to rain, possibly even purifying it as it passes through the material. It also spreads the rainfall evenly, so that all areas get about the same amounts, even if one area of the roof gets hit by a downpour, while another gets no rain. It also filters the sunlight for optimum plant growth light frequencies - it even glows in the dark, it might actually be seen in satellite images, if you focus on the right area. There are holes in the structure in numerous locations, though, to allow easy flight in and out by the Invid.

"The Invid farms are downstream of the dam, and have as their base of operations a hive built on stilts above the river. The entire hive sphere is visible, as a result. They also don't let their slave workers spend nights outside the hive, as they became aware of the raids for women by the primitives. It's a lot of trouble for them, but it keeps their slaves happy not to lose their wives and daughters.

"These primitives, though, aren't happy about the situation at all, and now, have more problems. Their 'river god', the dam, had its turbine gates open, causing some flooding of their hunting and fishing grounds. The reservoir was never stocked with fish, and the local species survived better in the river below the dam, than above it. Scott and the others stayed behind to talk to the chief, while Lancer came back to get me and the gear in camp. We're going to see what we can do to help them with the dam, and with their Invid neighbors."

7 July: "When did Murphy change the laws of combat to read 'No battle plan survives contact with Annie Labelle'? The plan was originally that we'd lure the Invid down to the dam with flares that give off a false Protoculture signature, then demolish the upper dam structure in their faces, leaving only the lower dam, which was designed to function as a small dam of its own, complete with power generation capability. The idea was that, if the full dam project was canceled, or delayed by fund shortages or warfare, that the region would get some use out of it, anyway. Besides, the upper dam was finished by unskilled slave labor and questionable material, and it was showing signs of wear - that's why the safety systems of the dam automatically opened the turbine sluices, to reduce the pressure on the full dam. Reducing the dam back to its primary stage form would wreck the Invid's irrigation system for their fields, and the flooding from the massive water release would destroy the current crop.

"On paper, that's pretty much what happened, except... The Invid showed up near the village, first, thanks to Annie and her latest boyfriend going on a joyride on Rand's Cyclone. Of course, they led the Invid right down to where they would fall into the trap, before wrecking themselves just above the high-water mark we'd plotted for the dambreak's flood. AS a result, not only did it look like the Invid destroyed the upper dam section with their fire (instead of our explosives), the ones who fired were so close to the dam that the bursting dam's fragments and wave caught them, smashing them to bits. That way, the Invid probably blame those dead scouts for accidentally destroying the farms. In all, everything worked out, though in a manner reminiscent of a Scooby-Doo episode in that the finale was hardly executed as planned."

10 July: "We're finally on our way, after clearing the debris from the water tunnels of the lower dam, so that the remaining power turbine could be run properly. Like many so-called 'interrupted cultures', the village had lots of technological relics they didn't know how to properly use, if even know what their intended use was. Of course, many of these tools required electricity, which our work on the dam gave them. We also taught them the basics of maintaining the turbine; mainly, how to cut and restore power, and keep the turbine's hub lubricated, based on the manuals that were on hand. At their low needs, the turbine's probably good for a decade or two, even without proper maintenance, as long as it's kept lubricated. By that time, this war should be a distant memory. The next chance we get, we'll tell of the village and dam's existence, so that trade can start - maybe even power lines ran from the dam.

"There were still some older men who remembered how to use the power tools, if a bit rusty from 15 years, and they were the ones we trained on maintenance, and helped them with the information they'd need to train others from the younger generation, that had resulted from the captured brides. Part of the lessons was building the rafts, and Rand was thrilled to have the help - not to mention the steel cable and poly-ropes from the village stores. I don't think any of us were going to be comfortable with the original plan for long, which was to use all of the rope we had on hand, plus a lot more vines than rope. We also found a couple of small outboard motors Lunk tuned up, and converted to run on the alcohol he's been distilling along the way for the truck's engine (rather than using its optional p-cell plant, and making himself a target). The motors, properly placed, steer the rafts, as we'll be getting our motion from the river. As we left, they ran the first full test of the lights we strung; the trees were beautiful, set against the dim, pink, light of the Invid roof.

"Now, if we could just deflate Rand's ego a bit, now that he's done something constructive. He's made at least a couple dozen Mark Twain-related jokes since we left, after all the 'Tom Sawyer' jokes made at his expense earlier in our travels. I think I'll keep score for a while to see how far he carries it..." (memo pad showing 67 instances on log screen)... "Oh, the hell with it; he's still going strong with them, and we're pulling ashore to rest for the day (it's safer, because of the Invid, for us to raft at night). Plus, I'm not getting the humor in him calling me 'Hank' - just because I'm from North America and educated does not make me the 'Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'.

11 July: "We passed under the local hive last night - that's right, UNDER. It's built on stilts, stretching to either river bank, the hive's bottom being about 200 meters above the river itself. Worse, the entire thing glowed in the dark. Seriously. And, you'll probably see some of these long before you read this report, Colonel, but we also spotted a new kind of Invid; at least, one new to the war here on Earth. Noel says, based on some of the memories Karen shared with her in 2030, that it's an Invid type known as a Command Unit - code-named "Pincer" by Dr. Lang. None had been seen on Earth, or in the Regent's forces, since the battle at Garuda, and only a few were there. It had been believed they were a discarded prototype - most likely, it's a design specific to the Regis' forces, and requires an experienced pilot - something her forces were short of, as she only kept a handful of troops on Haydon IV, and the most war-like Invid all ended up with the Regent. From what Noel could remember through the haze of her current mental condition, the Pincer has the most potent weapons - and the ones most easily aimed, without moving the entire mecha - of anything seen in the Invid arsenal. Two giant infra-red lasers, so powerful that they are visible from the heating effects they have on the air molecules in their way, and in fact cook the air in the path into plasma, doubling the lethality at short range. Potent, but limited in range, used in an atmosphere. But, they are very good at causing fires, and fires are a potent terror weapon against all carbon-based life. They'd be especially nasty against power armors such as the Cyclones."

22 July: "We reached Urabá today. It was devoid of people; then again, we knew it would be, from the one satellite recon we had of the region, and the radio messages from a couple years ago. We found just enough Protoculture to refuel our mecha, with a few spares. There's still three more potential stockpiles to investigate, though. Currently, the others are out checking those sites, while Noel and I sit here and guard our camp. This is starting to become a routine, but I guess it's Scott's way of letting us, as the group's only married couple, to have some time alone together. It's raining hard, right now; my guess is that a tropical depression is moving onshore, if not the leading edge of a tropical storm or hurricane. We heard what may have been thunder, earlier, but we're starting to think more and more that it might have been explosions. I hope the others are all right."

23 July: "It's still raining. The others are all right, but the group almost fell apart. Rook and Rand confided to us that there were threatening to leave the group, to try to get Scott to slow down, and gather more forces. The bluff didn't work, though, and despite their actually leaving, they came back within a couple hours, once they realized Scott was not going to hold back. And, in the middle of all this, Annie shows back up. I don't know how she caught up with us, or even found our camp, as we'd left her behind at the village with the dam, as she was going to marry one of the local boys. She apparently couldn't handle the domestic life, and no mention as yet as to how far (marriage, sex, etc.) the couple actually went before she came running after us.

"Next stop is the Canal Zone, since our inability to find large amounts of Protoculture pretty much nixed the idea of flying across the Gulf - even if we island-hopped (and all the big islands have correspondingly big hives!). There were lots of bases in the Canal area, and even if they don't have Protoculture, they might well have the stuff we need to try to hoof it up the Pan-American Highway from there. The UEG made a big issue of completing it, once the South began to rise in power - especially since many of the environmentally contested areas had been blasted clear of all life by the Zentraedi (Before then, the Darien Gap was a hellhole of hostile animal life, hostile PLANT life, and crazies ranging from drug dealers and revolutionaries to tribes of primitives not 100% confirmed to be out of the headhunting/cannibal business), and the government needed much easier access to get the rebuilding crews in to rebuild the Canal, after the hits it took from the Zentraedi."

27 July: "So much for any ideas of going up through Central America. The Invid have a huge garrison in the Zone, to prevent looters, and locals that would talk describe most of the land from Guatemala to the Canal Zone as one big Flower Farm, with isolated patches of native vegetation. It's as if the Invid chose to use everything already cleared for their purposes, but left the rest unscathed. Noel suggests that the Regis may have spared the rain forest sections for biological research, and also because to clear them would have made her feel like she was emulating the Robotech Masters, and what they did to her world. I can't argue with either point - there was plenty of suitable land the Invid ignored, all along our path here, that only had the distinction that its jungle vegetation had been spared by both human farmers and the Zentraedi bombardment, separating it from Invid farms - or in some cases, dividing a farm into sections. The Invid occupation of that region also explains why none of the Resistance-provided maps had any details for the region - and reaffirms just how bad a choice Point K was for Mars Division to land."

28 July: "We got lucky. A local associate of Lancer, one of his (or should I say, Yellow's) band from the early days, lives nearby, and recognized him. When their resistance group broke up, he was one of those (along with Carla) that caught the last train to Venezuela. The group split up at that point, Carla staying behind, while the others attempted to leave by ship. That had been the last Carla had seen of any of them, and she was the one who told Lancer of how the others had left, at their reunion in Deguello. He confirmed the Invid hostility towards motorized sea transport, and that he had made it back to southern Panama using a small sailboat. The others had used a larger boat, and they parted ways after two days, since they were going to try going up the Gulf Stream, to put ashore on the Eastern Seaboard somewhere between the Carolinas and New Jersey.

"He told Lancer of a small coast patrol facility at La Palma. There were three vessels there - a heavily armed cutter, and two boats modeled after the classic PT boat design, but with pintle-mounted missile launchers on the rear deck instead of the traditional .50 cal machineguns. There were also several cargo barges there, last he looked. The most important thing, however, was that the facility was, in fact, a cover for a SEAL Squad covert action squadron, that specialized in retrieval of sunken wreckage, as well as the occasional amphibious strike. The PT boats were capable of completely automated control via remote from shore, or from the cutter, and were often used this way to bring them in to retrieve strike teams after a covert mission, or to act as a diversion, without endangering the lives of team members. And, all the craft were armed with stuff 'not for public consumption', so it's highly likely that there is at least a small Protoculture reserve hidden somewhere on the base, especially if any of the Kraken dive armors were assigned to the base. We're heading there now - it's uncomfortably close to the Invid, and it means that we'll have to go up the Pacific coast and come ashore in California or northern Mexico, but it's our only option to get all of our gear north without running out of Protoculture on the way."

31 July: "We've been at sea now for 30 hours. Much of the special gear had been mothballed, but the cutter and PT boats were pretty much as described. It took most of the 29th to get them operational, and we barely got out in time. In fact, we had to fight our way free out into the deep water (where the Invid seemed reluctant to follow), and Rook was injured in our escape, by a shot that, had it been more powerful, would have penetrated the cockpit fully and killed her. As it was, she took some fragmentation damage and an electrical burn, and part of her controls have to be replaced from the limited amount of repair parts that Lunk has been hoarding since we left Point K.

"When she landed for treatment, we realized we had a problem - we were unable to pack the barges properly while we were in calm waters, and landing the Veritechs on the barges in high seas meant only one could be placed on each barge, instead of the two each we'd planned. One barge was the truck and all the supplies we'd recovered from the base (so much that we'll have to cache it when we land, and probably leapfrog it between camps as we advance, until it's depleted), a second had more supplies and the Spartacus, leaving three barges to hold four Alphas and a Beta. We took care of one of the problems, by linking Rook's Alpha to the Beta, and landing them together, not to be moved until we put ashore, with repairs waiting until then to minimize exposure to the corrosive sea environment. The other three Alphas would have to rotate in shifts - four hours in air, eight on the barges, with each of us able-bodied and flight trained taking one shift per day, flying as air cover. Noel's already taken two shifts, and both Lunk and Rand are doing fairly well as pilots, though Lunk doesn't really seem to enjoy it that much. He does, however, constantly mention how much this continued use at low speed over salt water is going to make the next maintenance downtime a bear to deal with, not to mention the additional Protoculture use. Granted, if we really wanted to do it, fighter-mode Alphas float when sealed for space running and the propellant tanks filled with air, but towing one that way is a last resort we don't really want to go to.

"Our planned destination for this leg of the trip is a resort island off Baja California, where we can stop for repairs, and prep for the more difficult last leg of our sea voyage, up the coast to California itself. While the Zentraedi blasted that region, it's lain fallow for over 20 years, and there should be enough farm land gone wild still surviving to replenish our food stores before the trip over the mountains. And, it's not a direction the Invid would expect trouble from."

**Chapter Eight:**

"I know it's hard to believe, but it's true. In the year that Noel, Marlene and I were part of the group prior to the incident in the Alleghenies, Marlene never got so much as a scratch. The rest of us were bruised, cut, beaten, even winged once or twice by energy weapons; but she never suffered a single visible injury, at best getting a small bruise, and fresh bruise on one of these 'simulagent' Invid looks like a week-old, discolored-from-healing, bruise on a normal human. The bodies of the dead we've examined in the last couple days bears this out. We really had no reason to suspect her origins."

- Alex Tyler, debriefing concerning Ariel/Marlene and Sera, three days after Reflex Point.

"Well, Doc, will I live?" Rook asked weakly, as Alex gave her wound a follow-up examination on the beach, since the hotel itself was without power.

"You're healing fairly quickly, so far. The good news is that the hotel's clinic has better stuff for me to treat your wound, than what we had to use on the cutter."

"How come the hotel was so much better than a military ship?"

"This far from civilization, it had to have its own local medical treatment options; and since the clientele were rich, only the best care would do. This place actually had two doctors and six nurses as part of the hotel staff, put up in five bungalows on the far end of the beach. The rent alone on those bungalows was more than a general makes in a year, at the resort's weekly rates, but that was just a fringe benefit of being staff here, along with a salary equally as big, for the medical staff. Talk about a perfect job - a resort home, free use of the facilities, and getting to mix with the rich and famous when not on duty in the clinic - with patients few and far between."

"Hey, Rook! When are you coming down to the water?" Rand called from the surf. He'd actually been surfing earlier - another talent he'd seemingly pulled out of nowhere.

"I don't know if I can... Alex?"

"Once I apply this second layer of bandages, you can. They are more of that way-too-expensive medical stuff - designed to keep water and sand out, but still allow air to circulate around the wound area. I warn you, though - the adhesive used to seal the bandage takes alcohol to loosen it, so don't try removing it yourself. It will probably take ten times longer to Noel or me to take it off than apply it."

"Thanks, Doc."

Rand came over, helped her to her feet, and they walked down from the shade of the trees on the upper beach, to the breakers.

"Well, Dr. Tyler - want to go join them?" Noel asked, having come up behind her husband.

"Why not - Whoa!" Alex turned and saw Noel standing there in the skimpiest bikini he'd ever seen. "Couldn't find anything smaller, huh?"

"You like it?"

"I've seen pasties at a strip club that covered more. As a doctor, I recommend you wear a shirt over that - that's way too much skin that isn't normally exposed to sunlight."

"C'mon..."

"Not only is there the UV issue, I don't want to have to perform rescue breathing on Rand. He'll probably drown if he sees you like that - after all, remember how flustered he got when Marlene shucked her clothes in the mountains. If you pop a strap, he'll probably go into cardiac arrest. Besides, you'll make Rook jealous, if Rand stares at you - in which case SHE might drown Rand."

"Oh, all right... I know who the real person being possessive here, is..." She reached into her beach bag, and pulled out a 15th anniversary Minmei concert tee reproduction she'd taken from the gift shop (the same place she'd gotten the bag, the bikini, and Alex's own swimwear), and put it on, before heading to the water.

"Women;" Alex said to himself, walking up to Scott. "Can't live without them, but sometimes you just want to throttle them." Scott got a faraway look in his eyes. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No; not really, Alex. You just reminded me of something-"

"Your fiancee - dammit, I'm always sticking my foot in my mouth up to the kneecap. I'm sorry."

"You didn't have to apologize."

"Hey, Alex, Scott!" Rand called up from the surf. "Are you guys just gonna sit there all day? Come on in - the water's perfect!"

"I don't know how to swim," Scott replied, as Rand came up to them.

"That's a cop-out, and I know it. You sure could swim back in Brazil when you saved me from drowning - while still wearing your flight boots, no less."

"C'mon, Scott," Alex joined in. "chuck your boots, and join us in the water. I know for a fact that flight suit is made out of stuff like that bandage I put on Rook, so it's not like it will get ruined or anything. Besides, the Earth's surface is almost three-fourths water, and you're telling us they never taught you flyboys what to do if you had to ditch in the ocean? If they really didn't, we need to teach you. Better now, than learning the hard way."

"Oh, all right, if it will shut the two of you up..."

An hour later, they gave up. Scott could swim, at least enough to stay afloat, but he couldn't handle the surf. It was good enough for a pool, or a pool in a stream, but wave action, especially breaking near a beach, totally flustered him. As he slumped to the sand beside Marlene, he touched her slightly with his hand. She seemed to react strangely, almost as if he'd applied an electric shock to her. The others looked at him oddly.

"But, I just barely touched her!"

"Unh." Noel was wincing, as if from a sudden nerve twinge. "I don't think it was you. It's that bad old feeling again."

"Invid?" Alex asked.

"I feel them coming closer! They're here!" Marlene screamed, pulling at her hair, as if trying to drown out one pain with another.

Rand was the first to see them. "Invid! A whole bunch of them!"

"There goes our timetable," Scott muttered. "Noel, do you think you can fly?"

"Yeah. It's nowhere near as bad as it used to be, and it's usually just an initial sharp pain, unlike what's affecting Marlene."

"Good. You, Rook and Rand suit up. I'll run the PT's, and I want the three of you to wait for my signal before powering up the Alphas. Alex, get Marlene to the cutter, and warn Lunk and Annie."

"Roger," they replied together, and they grabbed their things and ran.

Alex had just gotten situated on the bridge, and was watching Scott's PT boats get plastered by the Invid, the boats' missiles returning the favor to a bunch of the scouts.

"Oh, shit," Scott said to himself on the bow of the cutter. Alex could read lips enough to recognize the phrase, and it caught him a bit off-guard. He'd never known the stern, unfeeling Bernard to curse before.

"What's wrong, Scott?" He yelled out the hatchway.

"Don't ask me how, but those Invid somehow traced the RC broadcast. It must be those two new types. No Invid mecha we've ever seen has had those kind of sensors before.."

"What new mecha - Oh my God! Those things are almost as big as the Beta!"

"Cold-start the engines, and signal the others - we can't wait for Lunk and Lancer anymore. I'm going to try to even the odds a bit with the main battery."

"Good hunting!" Alex wished for Scott, and thought to himself "(and good luck, because we're gonna need every bit of luck we can get.)"

The odds were definitely not in Scott's favor. That he was even to come close to hitting flying Invid with the gun was a testament to both his skill, and the "smart shell" technology the gun used. The shells were capable of course correction, steering itself onto a target, so long as such a move could be done with the round's existing kinetic energy from being fired. Of course, this made them so expensive that the technology was only used on the MAC II, VHT and the projectile version of the Raider, and it was a surprise to all of them that the cutter had the shells, as the "6 inch naval gun" version of the VHT cannon wasn't supposed to be on a vessel this small, nor was the ammunition standard issue for such a cannon on normal ships. In fact, Alex was able to confirm, on sight, that the ammo was actual VHT cannon rounds, not naval or ground artillery ammo.

Then, almost as quickly as they arrived, the skies seemed to clear of Invid, as the Veritechs arrived over the cutter. Lunk, Annie and Marlene came aboard at that time, Marlene having waited with Lunk and Annie, as to not slow down Alex's trip to the ship any further.

"Welcome aboard, Captain Lunk," Alex joked. "Ready to assume command?"

"I'd rather just take over command - you know what 'assume' does... As soon as Scott's clear, cast off the stern lines, while I get the bow. Annie, take Marlene and go to the bridge to watch for Invid."

As Alex worked on the lines, he noticed an old car bumper sticker on the stern, covered with clear sealant to protect it from the elements. "Hi, I'm the Dread Pirate Roberts #7237. Ask about franchise opportunities in your area!" He was chuckling about that, when he heard Annie screaming out a warning. Another Invid, one of the more common, smaller, types, had come back around for another go at the cutter, on what looked like a kamikaze attack from 1945. Lunk had managed to get to the turret, and start firing at it, but it was already over the bridge when Lunk did hit it, and the turret was hit by both the shattered Invid, as well as fragmentation from the too-close hit.

To his relief, he saw Lunk scramble out of the burning mess, as he made his way back amidships. The turret was probably knocked out until they could find time to do more serious repairs, but at least Lunk was relatively okay. He was favoring an arm, and had a lot of small scratches and burns, but was much better off than Alex thought he'd be.

"Annie, call Scott and Lancer. One of them needs to come back here and take over the ship."

"Gotcha."

"Lunk, come down to the sickbay, and let me check out that arm."

"Alex, how's Lunk's arm?" Lancer asked over the ship's intercom, as they finally got underway.

"He'll be good as new in a week. It's just deep bruising with some burns on top."

"Sorry about getting you into this, Lancer," Lunk called out.

"Don't worry about it. If you hadn't shot that Invid when you did, we wouldn't be having this conversation. You did good. Hold on, Scott's calling."

Then, without warning, the ship's engines were thrust full astern, taking Alex's feet from under him, landing on Lunk. They struggled to their feet, and called up to the bridge for an explanation.

"Lancer, what's going on? Lancer? Annie? Someone answer me, dammit!" Instead of an answer, he heard the aft missile launchers fire. A few seconds later, Lancer finally replied.

"Sorry about the delay. We just got a real good look at those new Invid mecha, a lot closer than was comfortable. Like, as in about ten meters away, close."

"Damn. What happened to it?"

"The pilot froze up, looking at us, and we recovered first, and drove her away by shooting her. Barely scratched the mecha though."

"Wait a minute... _HER?_ You saw the pilot, and could tell its sex?"

"Remember when you and Scott were discussing T.R. Edwards? Were all of his followers accounted for?"

"Yes, I believe so - you're not saying...?"

"Yes; the new Invid mecha have human pilots."

"Oh, my God."

After that close encounter, the Invid retreated again. They made landfall on an island that was completely wilderness, that evening, and went back with the cutter under cover of darkness, and retrieved the barges, now with enough free space to actually operate one Alpha from the cutter deck itself, after clearing the damaged area in front of the turret. The next morning, they set course for Hawaii, and proceeded that way for two days, hoping that if the Invid were watching from a distance, they'd think it to be their destination. They then turned due north for another day, then changed course one last time, the next day, deciding to head toward the ruins of San Francisco Bay, instead of the original plan for San Diego or Los Angeles. They hadn't had the chance to stock up on food and water as much as they'd originally hoped, so they decided to minimize their desert exposure as much they could.

The group spent the better part of a month in California, collecting enough food for what they expected to be a month of travel. Part of the delay was from Invid patrols that were most likely looking for them specifically, since there was no one else there (at least that they'd seen) to warrant such attention. Most likely, the Invid had discovered the cruiser, where they'd left it, scuttled, at the remains of a pier in Oakland's ruins.

The delay was costly in resources, but even more so in time. It was early in October when they finally entered the Sierra Nevada range for good, and and fall weather was a fleeting memory. Earth was still recovering from Dolza's attack, and since 2011, weather patterns were even more unpredictable than they'd been before 2000. Sometimes the weather would be unseasonably warm, such as the winters of 2013-2014 and 2029-2030, when one could go picnicking in the Dakotas in December without a jacket, and be comfortable. Other years, the winters were far worse than the ones recorded in the 19th & 20th centuries, and for the American West, it was going to be one of those frigid years, not the warm winters of New Macross & Monument's last years.

Winter was coming earlier and harder than normal to the Sierras and the Rockies, and winter was a much more implacable and heartless foe than the Invid.


	18. Bk4 Side: The Ones They Left Behind

Robotech: The Freeman Chronicles

**Book Four Side Story: "The Ones They Left Behind"**

By: Stan Bundy

"Out of the whirlwinds,

Out from the wreckage;

Can't make the same mistake this time.

We are the children,

The last generation;

We are the ones they left behind.

And I wonder if we are ever gonna change?

Living under the fear, till nothing else remains?"

- Tina Turner, "We Don't Need Another Hero"

(From the movie Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome)

**7 September 2030; Glike, Haydon IV:**

"Jean, I could use your help," Janice Em asked the defacto REF ambassador to the Haydonites.

"Fire away, girl."

"You're the expert on children like mine, and I could use some advice on parenting. After all, Optera ain't the kind of place to raise the kids."

" 'In fact, it's cold as hell'?" Jean answered, completing the couplet. "Excuse me, Jan, but you're speaking in lyrics again. You just paraphrased an old Elton John song."

"Huh? Sorry. Minmei and I are supposed to go back into the studio during my layover on Tyrol, after she comes back from her honeymoon. I've been going over old space-related songs, to see if we would want to cover any of them. How did you catch it?"

"First, that line is pretty non-standard English. Second, I'm not sure if I've ever heard you something as slang as 'ain't' before."

"Well, besides my singing, I've been working on humanizing myself - incorporating less rational thought patterns, that sort of thing. The Haydonites have been a great help, seeing as they exhibit them, and Zor originally based my CPU on his study of their form of sentience. They are so much more than machines; I want to be, as well."

"Back to your original question; what kind of help do you need with the children?"

"I guess we wandered off-subject; the new thought routines must be working - perhaps too well. Anyway, there aren't any other kids their age, real of apparent, going on the Optera rehabilitation mission. And, even on Tyrol, none of the other parents will let their children play with Zor and Musi."

"Musi?"

"That's Zor's pet name for his sister. They're very mature, and that's part of the problem. They may be about three, but they look closer to six to eight years, and act their apparent age. They even tell me that they'll keep aging that way until the hit the physical equivalent of their early teens, about five or six years from now. And, what Karen told me about... ...their parents seems to back that up."

"Tell me the truth, Jan. They really are Karen's, aren't they?"

"Yes, hers by Rem. She seduced him here on Haydon IV, the night before she returned to Tyrol to confront Edwards. She gave birth to them on whatever world it found when she teleported from her near-death, and had already made up her mind to give them to Rem and me, to be the children the two of us could never have."

"Do you understand the sacrifice she made for you?" Jean couldn't help but think of her own son, Bowie, who was supposed to leave Earth soon, to bring his wife's people back to Tyrol. Having to leave him on Earth had hurt Jean more than any of the deaths and betrayals of the actual REF mission.

"To some extent. I haven't fully mastered human emotions yet; at least, not to the extent of maternal feelings."

"You knew I'm leaving for Tyrol tomorrow; why didn't you wait until I got there to bring this up?"

"First of all, I wanted to get this settled now, as to not interfere with your reunion. Secondly, the other people I need to talk to about this are going on the same trip as you, to meet your son, and their older daughter's other friends."

"Are you sure you want to ask Max and Miriya? They have their hands full with Aurora. She's practically autistic."

"Yes, but she's also the only child currently exhibiting characteristics like those of the twins, at least on a similar power level. They are roughly the same age chronologically, and will be so in physical terms within a year or so. Plus, all three are telepaths, and they're much more practiced at it than Aurora. Maybe all Aurora needs is someone like herself to interact with, to break that shell around her."

"You seem to have your position thought out; but will they go for it?"

"We'll find out in a few minutes. I sent word for them to meet us here."

"Why didn't you say so earlier?"

"It must have slipped my mind."

"Slipped your mind? HOW?"

"When Zor reprogrammed this body from being a remote for his ship's computer, to being a simulacrum of his dead lover, he added several unorthodox subroutines. Unless I'm in my superuser access mode, where my personality bank runs in the background or is paused, I have tendencies to be absent-minded, if not downright flighty. It's one of the few things that carried over into this identity, which Lang created 15 years ago. Rem's not had full enough recall of his ancestor's technical expertise to figure out how to modify it. It's one human trait I'd rather not have."

"Think about how much we could have learned from your 'Musica' personality, if it hadn't purged itself. So little is known about Zor's last days."

"Sometimes, I feel like she's still part of me. If the Haydonites never truly forget, then how could she have purged herself. Maybe, just maybe..."

"Maybe what?"

"Maybe, when I actually meet Bowie's wife, those memories of hers that I was programmed with will be stimulated, and start to return. I'm based off Haydonite systemry, and they CAN'T forget long-term memory; at least, not without physically removing or destroying the affected areas of their memory core. They can hide it away, but they won't lose it completely, until they run out of storage space, and that takes centuries. Meeting Musica might allow me to reopen the connections to that part of me, and I can truly be whole again."

"'Truly'?" Jean asked, noticing the hesitation in Janice's voice. "What do you mean by that?"

"Well..."

"Truly a wife for Rem, as he is a Zor clone? Truly a mother to the twins, as Musica is their ancestor? You don't need those memories for that. You are whole person now; all you need is to be yourself. It won't matter whether her memories are still there or not; what matters is your happiness. You are Janice Em, now; not a mechanical mockery of a centuries-dead Tiresian. Don't let your origins interfere with your life in the present."

A knock sounded from the apartment's wooden door; one of the Grants' few luxuries on the mechanical world. Once, these had been the quarters of an ambassador from one of the long-lost outer worlds of the Masters' conquests, and had been furnished elegantly when it had been assigned to them.

"Come in," Jean called out, knowing the visitor had to be part of the small human contingent on Haydon IV, since Haydonites lacked the physical ability to knock, and knocking was essentially only a Terran means of announcing oneself. Max and Miriya walked in, Max uncharacteristically carrying Aurora on his shoulders.

"Jean, is Janice here? She sent word for us to meet the two of you here."

"Yes, I'm here."

"What's up?"

"I don't want to impose on you, but I'm running out of options," Janice replied, slowly. "Could you two take care of Zor and Musi while Rem and I are working on Optera? They won't have anyone to play with there, and they haven't been able to fit in on Tyrol."

"Why us, Jan?" Miriya asked. "Surely there are others in a better position to help?"

"No, there aren't. Most of the adults on Tyrol are scared of them, because of their abilities, growth, and apparent connection to Karen. Besides, you have Aurora here, and she is a lot like them. If you take them in, the three will be able to play together. And, the Haydonites adore children, and won't even take their differences from human norm into consideration, except to study them unobtrusively. I'd rather have the Haydonites using the planet's sensors to watch the kids, than have my coworkers on Optera or Tyrol physically prying into their lives."

"What does Rem think of this?"

"It was originally his idea. He's been catching a lot of flak from the others, because we're the only ones given clearance to take a family to the New Praxis project, and an adopted one at that. The others can't even persuade the council to allow the children to visit, let alone stay there. Even the Praxians have been giving us the cold shoulder, because they lost the _waashi_ when Praxis blew up. It's just not fair for the others to let the children stay with us."

"I think I understand your motives, now," Miriya replied knowingly. She had been the victim of much jealously herself in the years before the REF left Earth, from other Zentraedi who had been unable to produce offspring. "Are the children here?"

"They're with some of the Karbarran children, playing in the botanical gardens. Does that mean you'll take them in?"

"For now, but not until after Dana's ship reaches Tyrol."

"Good. This way, they'll be able to settle in with you, in a vacation environment, before actually moving in. Plus, I'll be available there in case you or they need me for something."

**20 September 2030; Tiresia, Tyrol:**

It was hard to say which was stranger: the reunion of families separated for a decade in a vain attempt to spare the younger generation from warfare, or the first meetings of people that, based on their genetic relationship, should have known each other, but didn't. First, there was Bowie's reunion with his parents, and the introduction of his wife and sisters-in-law to them. Though the Grants didn't notice, Janice (who had become quite the student of human behavior) could see that Allegra was as much a part of the marriage as Bowie and Musica, though apparently in a secondary position to her sister. Then, there was the clones' introduction to their "daughter" Miriya and her husband, and their first meeting with Cabell, who had become a father figure to the original Musica as well as Zor, in the dark days of the early empire.

After the pleasantries were exchanged and living arrangements made for all the refugees, they were joined by Rem, Janice and the twins, for a tour of Tiresia. The city was vastly different than the clones or the former Sentinels remembered, with over half of it rebuilt by the REF, and much of the rest still needing repairs from the damage caused by the Invid, or Edwards' attempted coup. Even so, it was Bowie and Jack Carlson (Octavia's husband) who were the most in awe of what they saw.

As they wandered the streets of old Tiresia, Musica's memories of a younger, more vibrant Tiresia began to resurface in her clones. They began recounting stories of the pre-Masters city, Musica's childhood and her early career. A couple of times, Musica was on the verge of tears; memories of her family triggered the more recent memory of her brother's last clone dying in her arms, sacrificing himself to save her life. But, even those instances paled before the effect that hit all three clones as they neared the location of Cabell's original labs, causing their simultaneous collapse into emotional wrecks. Jean, Bowie and Jack immediately went to their aid, while the others examined the area, to try to figure out what had caused such a reaction.

The location was off a major street, or what was left of it. Just meters to one side was a formerly secret entrance to the city's catacombs, torn asunder by Edwards' Inorganics. Much of the area had been torn apart by them, or the weapons that had been used to stop them. The alley itself was intact, other than the sundered door. As Jean finally got the muses calmed down, it was Janice who realized where they were, as her own memories of her previous incarnations as a construct of Zor began to break through the self-imposed barriers, thanks to the immersion into the city's history. She went over to the wall, removing a stone to reveal a niche. She reached into the gap, and pulled out an ornate wooden box, which she brought over to the others.

"What is it?" Miriya asked.

"Cabell, maybe you should be the one to explain it to him," Janice asked. "After all, you're the only one present who has seen it before, unless you count me when I was still acting as the remote body for Zor's computer."

"Then, this must be the place."

"What place?" Bowie asked.

"Many, many years ago, Zor, Musica and I were part of a conspiracy against the Robotech Masters. When the Masters discovered the plot, I was fortunate enough to be in my lab, working on the first generation of female Zentraedi, instead of being at the last meeting of the conspiracy. If I had been there, I would have died with the rest."

"What happened?" Miriya prodded. She, too, had felt that overwhelming numbness that had washed over the three muses, probably as a side effect of being their genetic daughter combined with their natural empathy. Her curiosity over what would cause such an effect was unbearable.

"There is a network of tunnels underground, connecting the Royal Hall to all points in the city. They date from the earliest origins of the city, and may have even existed in part before the city was built. In recent times, they served as my hiding place from the Invid, with Rem -"Cabell nodded at his foster son, "-as well as the storage location for the captured Invid Brain and Inorganics that T.R. Edwards later unleashed on the city. In the days before the original Tiresian emperors unified the planet, they served as shelters from attack, ways to move troops unseen, and even burial catacombs like those of Earth's ancient cities.

"But, in the time between our industrial revolution and the departure of the Robotech Masters," Cabell continued, "they were little more than curiosities. The utility departments used several major passages to lay cables and pipes, while minor passageways were all but forgotten, except by lovers meeting clandestinely, and youngsters looking for adventure. No one, not even the Masters or the maintenance people of the old Republic's civil service, had maps that showed much more than the major passages, and there were numerous secret rooms, hidden passages and exits, like the one here. Zor's passion as a boy was to explore as many of the tunnels as possible, when he wasn't continuing his education as my assistant in training. I was always afraid he'd go into one of the tunnels, and never be seen again. So, it was ironic when his childhood hobby proved invaluable to our resistance movement.

"Our group of conspirators met in a hidden room he had found in the bowels of the Royal Hall, made secure by daily checks for surveillance devices. The room had two exits - a secret one into a little-used corridor of the building, the other into the catacombs. In turn, the tunnel split into at least eight different connectors to the rest of the system, but only one of those was sufficiently big for walking, and the rest relegated to emergency dispersal use only. When the Masters' enforcers finally discovered the conspiracy, the oldest gave their lives to allow the younger members to escape to those tunnels. Once in the catacombs, the conspirators split up, taking different tunnels. However, something went wrong; probably, the enforcers gained access to the room too quickly, and the charge to blow the tunnels was set off prematurely. Only Musica and Zor made it to the main tunnels. They tried to make it to my laboratory, as I was their secondary alibi.

"In this alley, they emerged, only to run into a patrol that had heard the door open, and chose to investigate. There was a curfew that night, but Zor almost managed to convince the guards that he was on official business. It was at that moment that the patrol received word of the raid on the conspirators, and told that all curfew violators were to be treated as potential plot members, regardless of rank. Zor refused to surrender, and they tried to shoot him to wound, in order to prevent his escape. Musica did not recognize what the guards were attempting, so she threw herself in front of him when they opened fire, and was fatally wounded. In this alley, Musica died in Zor's arms."

There was a long, silent pause, then the clone Musica sat up weakly, and looked to Cabell.

"What happened then?"

"The Masters took Zor in for questioning, but he had studied the equipment that they had used on him previously, and had taken means to reduce its effectiveness on him. He managed to protect me from implication, and Musica as well, claiming she had been his alibi, not one of the conspirators. Since none of the other conspirators survived, or were in good enough condition for a post-mortem brain scan, his word was all they had to go on, and it appeared to them that he was telling the truth. He was temporarily released to my custody, and given Musica's cremated remains. Maybe they thought he would lead them to other conspirators, but I was the only one left of that group, and he was not about to implicate me.

"While he was free, he set about making this box, to hold Musica's remains. The wood came from a tree that his mother had planted in the garden of his home, shortly before her death twelve years before. The gold, he salvaged from the ruins of the old Senate chamber, which the Master Elders had blown up while the Senate was in session, making it look like the actions of Karbarran terrorists seeking to extort the secrets of fold technology from Tyrol. He made the box using tools that had been interred with an ancient craftsman, that had been recovered by an archaeologist colleague of ours from one of the underground crypts that Zor had found as a boy. When it was completed, he had Eve's robot body, now Janice, carve that niche in the wall, and we placed the remains there, on his way to the Masters' final attempt to control him."

"Then, how did Musica's genetics get into the Zentraedi, and where did her clones come from?" Bowie asked. "After all, she was cremated."

"The Masters attempted to brainwash Zor again, but he had managed to develop a device and implant it into himself that made their machines think that they were successful in reprogramming him. They then sent him out in the SDF-1 to plant the Flowers of Life for them, but instead, he conducted the planting on his own terms. After he was safely away from Tyrol, they unveiled their clone of Musica, made with samples they had taken before her cremation."

"Why did they clone her?" Jean asked.

"Musica had a quality that was unique; the only other persons I have ever met that seemed to show similar qualities are Minmei and Karen, and all of you Terrans know how effective Minmei was in your fight with the Zentraedi. Musica's voice had an almost hypnotic effect on the Zentraedi and other clones created using Protoculture, and it also had an effect on the Flowers of Life, to where the seeds would last much longer before germination if exposed to her voice. As a result, her death was totally unforseen, and a major blow to the Masters' plans. They created a single clone to replace her, who served them well, until the time of the fleet launch. It was then that they created the three of you," sweeping his arms at the muse triumvirate, "figuring rightly that, since the nature of the Flower preferred groups of three, a triad would have an exponential effect on the fleet's clones and Protoculture supplies."

"I remember her," Allegra said, standing slowly with the help of Bowie and Musica. "She was the only other person I ever saw in Muse regalia, and she was one of the old citizens that were grouped with us in the room where Bowie, Musica and Dana found us. She was so dedicated to the Masters, that she chose not to go with us when we evacuated."

"As for the Zentraedi," Cabell resumed, "I managed to get a sample from their clone, and incorporated it into the Zentraedi project. I did so with the hope that Musica's gentle nature would temper the Zentraedi programming, if not cause them to rebel. It did so, but ironically also produced the best warrior lines of the Zentraedi, male and female. I also kept a sample for Zor, but he never returned, and I lost it in a lab accident, preventing me from using it to create a clone to be Rem's companion."

The child Musica, having been set down and all but forgotten in the initial confusion, walked over to her namesake, touching the chest, then hugging the legs of Musica Grant.

"Grand-mama..."

"Is there something you should be telling us, Janice?" Bowie demanded politely, as the three clones stared at the child.

"It was bound to come out sooner or later," Janice said, her human emulation software prompting her to sigh. "As you know, Bowie, Noel Freeman is the genetic granddaughter of the original Musica, but she is also a clone of Karen Freeman, who returned to Earth with her family a few months ago."

"We met Karen, so we know that already."

"Well, Karen made love to Rem on Haydon IV, a few years ago, and these two children are the end result. So, in effect, they are descended from both Zor and Musica. Karen named them for their ancestors, in fact. Musica, Octavia, Allegra; let me formally introduce you to Musica Freeman-Rem and Zor Freeman-Rem, your great-grandchildren. Both are named for their honored ancestors, who died so that we could be free today."

"Musica..." the clone of the same name said softly, lifting her great-granddaughter into her arms. Memories flooded back to her; memories of her former self, and the deep emotions she had felt for Zor a literal lifetime before, that were little more than an echo now. "So, little one, you are the daughter I should have had, and Miriya, one of the daughter I had, but could have never foreseen. Where is Aurora? Dana talked so much about her, even if she only saw her in her dreams."

"I'm sorry, Musica; "Max replied. "We didn't think it would be a good idea to bring her along, so we left her with friends."

"What is wrong with her?" Allegra asked, having picked up on the gossip about the Sterlings' youngest daughter during the welcoming ceremonies.

"She's autistic... It's a Terran term, hard to describe in Tiresian. She doesn't always seem to be aware of her surroundings," Jean tried to explain. It was hard enough dealing with the fact that her son's wife and sisters-in-law were her best friend's mothers(?); now she had to try to explain a condition that was hard to describe in laymen's terms under the best of conditions.

"Speaking of children, where did Zor disappear to?" Rem asked his wife.

"I don't know; he was here just a second ago."

"I'm over here," Zor called from around the corner. As came back to the adults, it was clear that he was not alone. "Gramma wanted to see 'Rora, so I went back and got her."

A mixture of moans and chucles went through the adults. Max in particular was showing his trademark "Here we go again" blank stare, as he knew that his daughter had been over a mile away, and that Zor had exhibited his teleportation ability in public for the first time.

"Zor!" Janice bellowed. "How many times have I told you not to teleport in a strange place?"

"Eight times, Mama; nine if you're tellin' me again," Zor replied. "But I knew where I was going, Mama; honest. 'Rora's been talkin' to me in my head ever since we left her."

"What am I going to do with them, Jean?" Janice pleaded. "I dread thinking about what they'll be like when they reach their teens."

"That's why you asked Mir and me for help," Jean replied. "Between two sets of parents, three when you're in, we should be able to handle their aging so rapidly. We'll have them straightened out in no time."

"Don't do that," a voice said quietly.

Everyone turned towards Aurora, who was the only one who could have spoken.

"What did you say, honey?" Max asked his daughter.

"Don't change Zor; I like him like he is."

The adults looked around at each other, astonished.

"It looks like Zor has done some changing of his own," Janice said. "He and Musi really must be getting through to Aurora."

"But how much, and how deeply?" Jean replied cautiously. "And will their emotional maturation keep pace with their physical growth?"

"We'll just have to take that as it comes."

"That's the second opinion I didn't want to hear, Miriya. But it's the only solution."

**April 2035:**

The twins lived with the Sterlings for the next four years, from the return to Haydon IV until the return of Rem and Janice from New Praxis with the Protoculture for Jupiter and later divisions. Aurora was only seven, and the twins six, but they were as physically mature as sixth-graders, and acted even older, having tested their way into high-school level courses taught by Jean. In fact, Max and Miriya were almost glad to turn the twins back over to Rem and Janice in the summer of 2034, as Zor and Aurora had been acting strangely around the house, in a manner that Max read as mutual puppy love.

Now, nine months later, the SDF-3 was due to leave for Earth, along with the rest of the fleet built since the ship's arrival. The Sterlings were watching the live hyperspace communications feed from Tyrol, wishing one set of friends well, as they went to the aid of another. Aurora's attention was focused on the SDF-3 for another reason, much more personal. Zor and Musi were on board with their father and stepmother, and she was in contact with them on a telepathic link that they never told their parents about, but linked them to each other (as well as Aurora's sisters and nieces, and the twins' mother and aunt, but they rarely used it for that). Aurora and Musi were closer than most sisters, and used the link to talk daily about school, life and boys; especially Zor. The separation had been hard on Aurora and Zor; without the other near, each felt as if a part of their very soul was missing.

The fleet was moving to fold; all over the Local Group of star systems, fingers were crossed, and hands clasped in prayer. Aurora talked to the twins the whole way; their connection had no known range, and even worked (with effort) during folds, as evidenced the previous year by their keeping in contact during the twin's fold to Tyrol, and five years earlier by Marie Freeman joining in the similar link between Aurora and their sister Dana.

["Zor, come back to me safe; you to, Musi."]

["I will, 'Rora."]

["Yeah, I'll beat him up if he tries to get us in trouble, like trying to teleport to Mother on Earth."]

["Hey! I'm not that crazy. The reunion can wait until after the battle."]

The announcer on the communications link noted "The ships have reached their fold positions, and will depart at any second. Godspeed, Saturn Division."

["Well, we're getting ready to go; Aurora, you need to get those parents of yours off their butts, and back to Earth."]

["I'll try, Musi; I think they're getting tired of living on a giant machine."]

["They really do need to get out more. When's the last time they had a vacation on a real wor-"]

Musica was cut off in mid-thought; something was very wrong.

[Musica? Zor?] Nothing but mental static answered her.

"NOOOO!" Aurora screamed in anguish, as her world came crashing down around her.

All her parents could do was hold her, not knowing what was wrong, until the report came in minutes later that the SDF-3 had failed to reach Earth. Then, they too had something to worry about.

{To be continued in the last section of The Freeman Chronicles}


	19. Book Five, Part Sixteen

**Robotech: The Freeman Chronicles**

**Book Five: Genesis Climbers**

**By: Stanley Bundy**

I dedicate this book of R:TFC to all the fans that have been bugging me to finish typing this story for the last 12 years. I never thought I'd still be working on this story 19 years after I started writing it in my bunk at Fort Knox.

_**Wake me up in the middle of the night**_

_**Tell me what you've seen**_

_**Ivory clouds in a sea of blue**_

_**Fields of endless green**_

_**But we lie here and we search for stars**_

_**Or big red letters all the way from Mars**_

_**The sky is black and the moon is pale**_

_**And we cry for this world of ours**_

_**In the dark we still believe**_

_**In the dark we see**_

_**We dream in color**_

_**But we live in black and white**_

_**We dream in color**_

_**Like a rainbow in the night**_

_**We dream of peace - we dream of love **_

_**But still the dream is not enough...**_

- Starship, "We Dream in Color"

**Part Sixteen: Final Approach**

**Chapter One:**

"I used to love snow when I was a kid. We'd get one of those big Montana snows, over a meter deep, with five meter deep drifts. Without any close neighbors, I spent the lonely winters turning those drifts into snow forts and igloos, connected by trenches and tunnels, hoping that before they melted, one of my adult cousins in the military would come to visit, and we'd spend the short winter day in snowball wars. But, as I approached my teen years, the visits dropped off - one of the cousins had fallen in the Malcontent Wars, and the other departed on the SDF-3, only to die over Tyrol in the battle that resulted on the ship's arrival there.

"But, after the events of late 2034, having to cross from the Pacific to the Great Plains over the mountains, I vowed to get as far away from snow as I could. Does this qualify?"

- Alex Tyler, interview given to Maria Bartley-Rand, 2058, at the Tyler Plantation on St. Croix.

"Damn, it's cold!" Alex muttered as he staggered into camp, dropping the deer he'd shot to the ground before he stepped into the ring around the fire. "It took me longer to make it back than to actually track the thing and kill it, and I really didn't FEEL the cold until I had to lug the carcass back."

"Lucky you - the thrill of the hunt kept your mind off it," Rand replied. "I felt it the entire time I was out checking my snares, and only got a few rabbits to show for it. Imagine how cold you would have felt if you'd walked back empty-handed."

"Uggh..."

"At least Scott managed not to burn the last part of our last kill; tastes pretty good, actually." That kill four days ago had been a feral sheep, several generations removed from its domesticated ancestors. Inexperience with cooking mutton had resulted in half the meals being only marginally edible. "So, our efforts will go toward breakfast in the morning. What should we have tomorrow, Annie? Bambi or Thumper?"

"Do you have to put it that way?"

Alex removed his blood-splattered poncho from over his cold weather gear, and sat down next to Noel, who opened her thermal blanket wider to let him in with her - she had similar attire on underneath the blanket, but she was using the blanket to channel in and hold the heat from the fire. Once he was seated, Rook passed him his plate of mutton, with some small potatoes from a garden long gone native after its owners fled California (or died there) in 2011.

"So, Scott;" Alex asked, "Figured out where we are yet?"

The lack of a functioning GPS system since 2029 made this much more an issue than the half-century before. All of the mecha had inertial mappers as standard equipment, but after traveling hundreds of kilometers from their last certain position (a marker on one of the pier bases of the long-gone Bay Bridge, between the craters that once were San Francisco and Oakland), with all the odd moves that mecha made switching modes and moving in those modes, the systems could not cope, and you could park the Factory Satellite in the space between the inertial readings of the Alphas.

"Based on the different mecha readings, and the local terrain, I'd say we're within a few minutes one way or another of 39 North, 120 West. With all the snow, it's hard to be more accurate." He passed over an atlas of topographic maps of Nevada and California they'd recovered from the ruins of a pre-Zentraedi library.

"You're kidding, right?"

"Why would I be joking about it?"

"Donner Pass."

"So?"

"They probably don't teach United States History in space or South America, do they?" Alex asked rhetorically, then continued. "Let me enlighten you. About two centuries ago, the middle of the continent was still an untamed wilderness, with wagon trains crossing the unsettled Great Plains and Rockies bringing settlers to Oregon and California. One of these was the Donner Party. They attempted to take a 'short cut' going into the Rockies that ended up costing them most of their supplies, not to mention taking twice as much time as the normal path, due to conflict with hostile Indians - the reason why no one else used the 'short cut' in the first place. They finally found themselves in this pass, about this time of year, with conditions similar to this - a year where winter came much earlier than normal, with heavy snows. In no time, they were stuck in the snow, with no way to continue or retreat."

"What happened to them?" Rook asked.

"Already short on food, they tried to hunt to survive, but couldn't find enough food. Not only had most of the game been driven out of the hills by the unseasonable weather, most of their hunters had been killed or had left the group. They even threw the one person that could have led them to safety out of the party, and he beat them to California, while his family was still in the caravan. They eventually ate their animals, then resorted to eating their own dead to survive, before they were rescued. Even that was because the person they threw out was organizing searches for his family, and was ready to go to the rescue when a few survivors sent to find help staggered out of the mountains, with the location of the rest of the party. Another day, probably, and the 'Forlorn Hope', as the attempt to find rescue was called, would have probably died, and the party wouldn't have been found until the thaw uncovered their corpses in the spring."

"Oooh, gross!" Annie squealed. "Eating bunnies doesn't sound bad after that."

"Don't worry, Mint," Rand responded. "We can always fly out of here if we have to, though that means risking the Invid."

That was true enough, but they only had enough Protoculture on hand to power the Cyclones reliably, to the point that they'd had to leave all but one of the Alphas in California, with the plan to go back for them once they procured enough Protoculture to power them. California and Nevada never had any human-held Protoculture stores after Dolza's fleet destroyed all of California and the mecha test facilities at Nellis AFB in Nevada (ironically, the only Nevada target successfully hit). But, there was an Invid farm in Arizona that drew irrigation water from Lake Powell, and there had been ASC facilities in Utah that might still hold Protoculture -. Getting to them would require getting into Nevada.

"Ohh..." Marlene moaned in pain, breaking up the frivolity; it wasn't the cold causing her to shudder. Noel, on the other hand, rarely had more than headaches from the Invid anymore, but she could confirm what they all dreaded.

"There goes the Invid alarm," Noel joked darkly, wincing from the pain as she and the other combatants threw off their blankets and pulled their H90s, not yet activating them in case the Invid were just passing close by from coincidence. A couple of minutes passed, nervously, before they dropped their guard, thinking the danger had passed. They had just sat back down, when the Invid let them know their assumption was wrong - the Invid transmissions had only gone silent while they got into their positions, and resumed when they got the attack order. A plasma blast barely missed them - a miss that would only be seen as intentional months later. It served its purpose, causing the freedom fighters to spread out, as they made a fighting retreat to the slope that led to the dense woods.

Alex and Noel were the furthest from the slope when the fighting retreat began, and were the last ones over the edge. It was a wild ride down, as there had been a partial melt and refreeze some time before they had chosen that campsite, and the hillside was covered with an ice sheet an inch or so below the fresh snow. Making it up the hill with the dead deer had been the hardest part of Alex's hunt from the lack of traction - but the same ice now made the trip down not unlike that of a bobsled pusher that fell off during the run, a slide with no real control over final speed or destination. They watched in horror as the new mecha with a human pilot flew right over Scott, as if to study him before the killing blow, before Lancer distracted the female pilot with a couple of near-useless pistol shots. Then, something sounding like a MAC II volley sounded from above them, followed by deep rumbling from the direction of their camp.

"Avalanche!" Scott yelled, having scrambled to his feet and into a run at the bottom of the slop - but Alex and Noel had nowhere to go, not yet to the bottom of the hill. They tried to stand and run as they hit level ground, but the mass of ice, snow and mecha was too close. The air pressure in front of the avalanche knocked them back off their feet, and everything went black.

Unable to come to their aid due to the pursuing Invid, the others could only hope that the Tylers weren't seriously hurt, or buried too deep to dig their way out. As it was, they were more concerned with their own survival to turn back and search for the couple in an area with no cover from the Invid, and no way to detect the location of the two avalanche victims.

Alex woke up to the sound of distant gunfire. He was lying on his back, deep in a snowdrift, looking up at the stars through a hole that was at least as deep as he was tall. He initially thought he was partially buried, but raising his head slightly allowed him to see that the weight on his chest was actually Noel, who was still unconscious.

"Noel, wake up," he said softly, putting his hand on her shoulder. As he tried to gently wake her, fearing collapse of the sides of the hole they were in, he wondered how they actually got in that hole. It was impossible that they could have been thrown from the avalanche into an undisturbed drift, and there weren't any drifts this size in the path of the avalanche. The only way they could have impacted like they did was from a fall - one from a considerable height, at that.

"What... happened?"

"I was hoping you could tell me."

"We were being overtaken by the avalanche, then I lost my footing. I grabbed you as I fell. That's the last I remember."

"My guess is that you've finally recovered enough to have instinctive use of your powers. Your self-preservation instincts kicked in, and teleported us clear of the avalanche, like back in Monument at the hospital."

"This was different; a blind teleport. We could have ended up in a tree, or inside solid rock, or worse." The prospect of accidentally teleporting INTO a solid object had always scared Noel, though Karen seemed to have little fear of such an accident. "As it we must have fell quite far before we hit snow; we would have been seriously hurt, even killed, if we'd hit anything on the way down."

"But we didn't. I personally think that's a sign that it wasn't as undirected as you think. The important thing is that your powers are coming back. It's a good sign, of your healing."

"Is it? Sometimes I wish I had never had any powers. All they've done is caused me trouble and pain."

"You know that's not true. Both Zor and Rolf are alive now only because you had the power to save them, and the willingness to risk yourself to save them."

"A lot of that was Karen's doing-"

"Saving me in the ruins of Monument, wasn't. Your saving me resulted from a simple flash of precognition, and you risked yourself without any physical power use to knock me off my bike before it was hit by the bioroid's weapon fire."

"You... you are right, of course. I may not have asked for this, but I have these powers, and they are my responsibility. It just seems too much responsibility to bear, some times."

"Remember; I'm here - you never have to bear the burden alone, with me at your side." Alex then tried to change the subject. "The sounds from above are getting more distant; we need to get out of here and help them. Besides, we need to get out of here while we can still move. My other arm's almost numb from your weight on it."

"Oops - sorry about that."

After ten minutes of digging, they had compacted enough snow on one side of the hole to attempt to crawl out of the drift on their stomachs. Eventually, they reached snow with a hard enough crust (though under another foot of fresh snow) to allow them to stand, as loud crashing sounds came from the deep gorge cut by a nearby stream. By the time they reached the avalanche field, the others were beginning to filter in from the opposite direction.

"Where'd the Invid go?" Alex asked.

"Home, I hope," Scott replied, wearily. "We destroyed a few, but the big one fell over the cliff into the river, and I doubt that fall would be any more fatal than if one of the Veritechs fell, but it was having trouble dealing with the water - the river's still flooded from the partial melt before yesterday's storm. I'm sure we'll see her again. Lancer says it's the same woman he encountered on the island, so apparently we're getting some special attention. We managed to pull the protoculture cylinders from the two we dropped in the woods."

"You lured them into that old Forest Squad training camp?"

"Rand did. He even repaired the anti-mecha traps on the fly, and got a kill with them. Whoever designed those traps was a lunatic; a very skilled lunatic, but crazy nonetheless. Rand said it was like watching one of those old cartoons with the coyote. Anyway, if the scout caught in the avalanche is dead, and still there, if its power cell is intact, we'll have three relatively fresh cells, and that will be enough to fly us out of here, even with having to carry the jeep."

"Then, let's dig out the hovertank and get the other stuff ready to move. This place has a history of tragedy from October storms, and I don't feel like sticking around to add to it."

**Chapter Two:**

Nun 1: "Such a lovely name, Reno..."

Nun 2: "...AND GOMORRAH!"

_- Sister Act_

Three days later, they pulled into the ruins of Reno, having put off the retrieval of the other Alphas until they could get into a relatively secure position. Reno had been abandoned since shortly after the Zentraedi assault, not from direct damage but from its infrastructure being insufficient to handle the influx of refugees from California. By the time Nevada's civilians had been evacuated, they had taken much more damage than most other cities that had been spared by the orbital bombardment in more habitable areas. Reno and Las Vegas, despite the looting, still stood as ghost towns, testaments to the excesses of pre-Zentraedi Earth.

But, the ghost town would provide a temporary respite from war, even if it wouldn't provide weapons, food or other supplies. Scott and Lancer would fly the Beta back to California and bring back the other Alphas, while the others explored the abandoned casinos and hotels, still imposing even though small in comparison to Las Vegas. Vegas, while more likely to hold leftover supplies, was also well within the boundaries of the Invid reservation that used Lake Powell to irrigate vast Flower farms, and was bounded on the other side by a radioactive hole where the old US/UEDC mecha testing facilities once were, at a military base once rumored to be the site of UFO research. They set up their camp at a resort and casino made to look like an oversized mansion on the outside, with an oil derrick out front and, strangely, interior decorations from a stereotyped version of century-old southern Appalachia hill culture. It was weird, but it would do.

"Lunk, how's the generator coming?" Alex asked, sticking his head through the fire door into the hotel's engineering section.

"I'm about ready to jump-start the pony engine."

"Pony engine?"

"The generators are diesels, like what was used on locomotives; you have to have major battery power to crank one over, or a pony engine to get them turning over before turning them on. These batteries are totally flat after 20 years, but I'm hoping I can charge them up enough with the pony, so that the pony doesn't have to do all the work when I finally try starting the mains. The fun part has been adjusting the diesel injectors to burn protoculture bio-diesel. This stuff makes the old petroleum products seem about as flammable as water, and it's hard to get the injectors tuned to run THAT lean." Lunk attached the jumper cables from his truck, and stepped back from the small, formerly-gasoline-powered, pony. "Okay, Annie, start her up!"

Annie hit the start button; the pony sputtered a bit, but failed to catch. Lunk adjusted the choke of the old-fashioned pony engine, then motioned for her to try again. This time, the engine ran raggedly for a few seconds before dying. He made a few more adjustments, and had her start it again. It ran rough initially, then Lunk took his wrench and whacked a large protrusion. Immediately, the engine began running smoothly.

"The fuel filter clogged; it didn't know what to do with the particulate matter. It should be okay long enough to get the diesels started later."

"So you cleared it using maintenance rule #1-"

"Yeah - 'When in doubt, hit it with your wrench.' You need to go isolate the circuits you want to power before I start the diesel. I can run a generator on low output for a day or two, with my fuel supply for the truck, and the batteries will be charged enough for a day or two more if you just power the staff block after tonight."

"Where's the breakers?"

"It's actually a computer-controlled system - it will let you isolate areas more precisely than a normal breaker system, though you will have to turn on the physical main breakers before you can power anything. What all are you going to power tonight?"

"The small private kitchen and dinner theater, one of the private gaming rooms, the water treatment plant, and of course the staff block and its laundry area. And, the climate controls for the areas above."

"You don't want much, do you?" Lunk smiled. "Actually, the generator will still probably be putting out more power than the emergency batteries can take up, with all those areas powered and the generator running on minimum. We should just count ourselves lucky those generators are too big to move. Most of the furniture and half the casino equipment appear to have been sold by the casino owner prior to the Masters; he isolated the staff block for overnight use by his people whenever he came back after the evacuation to load a few truckloads of furniture to sell in Monument, but he typically brought his own generator in for powering it instead of hauling in fuel for this monster and maintaining it. I'm surprised, though, that you and Scott want me to do this - we could have stayed here without power, no problem. After all, for most of us, having utilities has been the exception rather than the rule for the last few years."

"After our close call in Donner Pass, we felt we all needed a bit of down time to unwind - not to mention let the Invid calm down a bit. A week should be sufficient, the last half of which we'll be without power anyway, unless you use some of the expended cells from the Alphas to cook us up some more bio-diesel for the generator. Besides, it will let us do some badly needed maintenance on our vehicles inside the loading docks, where we're out of the elements and out of view of the Invid. Tonight's extravagance is a bit nostalgic - a hint of what it was once like to be here, before the Zentraedi wrecked it all."

Scott and Lancer returned that afternoon, by which time Lunk had the generator going, and Alex and Noel had dinner cooking in the kitchen. One of the reasons for the big meal was that most of their stores, from the venison to the vegetables found growing wild in California, wouldn't last long once they actually started crossing the desert. Everything not eaten in the next few days would be dried in the oven, as long as the power was available for the kitchens.

In addition, the town would be scrounged for wild-growing food plants, and wild game taken, over the next week, for food to sustain them on the trip to Utah, where farmland had been rehabilitated and producing food within a few years after the Zentraedi bombardment, and as a result it was the best place to find food for the rest of the trip. There were also rumors, that had even reached South America, of a weapons dealer somewhere in Utah. Their recent ammunition expenditures meant that the they had to chase down those rumors, whether they liked it or not.

Noel was content to watch the food during the final stage of cooking, so Alex and Lancer took the opportunity to introduce the others to the games of craps, poker, and roulette - besides, knowing what they did of Noel's past, they didn't want to take the chance she'd instinctively manipulate the variables, or pick up on mental cues. Dinner was done about the time the poker table was down to heads-up play between Lancer and Rook. They broke for their meal, resuming their match while Alex and Noel warmed up the stage equipment, and Rand (as the first person out at the table) cleared the tables and washed the dishes. About a half-hour later, Alex had the sound boards and recording equipment set, and Lancer was back, having finally beaten Rook at the poker table. Rand brought in some wine that had been left in the vault, and everyone sat down for some musical entertainment.

Noel started off the concert with a tongue-in-cheek version of "Stagefright", followed by an equally playful version of "My Boyfriend's a Pilot". Alex was met by some good-natured ribbing and cat-calls from the others after the latter, as he went on stage with a case with several types of saxophone that had been left in storage (his own personal instrument being in Africa). Noel then covered several older songs from the 80s and 90s, from Tina Turner standards to some of the Kenny G pieces that accompanied a singer. Alex then left the stage again, and Noel moved to an electric piano (programmed to emulate a real one - the real piano was too badly out of tune after 20 years to attempt to play), and played and sang some of the songs she'd written with Bowie, as well as the folk song about her aunt Tinya's doomed affair with Leonard's godson, a song banned as subversive by the ASC, but she and Bowie had performed it regularly to thumb their noses at the censorship (after all, who would dare arrest two of Emerson's wards, one his godson, for singing a prohibited song?).

Lancer had joined her on stage to do the male part of "The Ballad of McCloud & Tinya", and switched from his male singing voice to his female voice, as the two did the song "Together", from the Hunter wedding. Noel then stepped down from the stage, and Alex synched up Lancer's DVD-R of backup music files to the recording controls. Amazingly, each song had separate tracks for each instrument, in standard digital format for use on a mixing and recording board, in addition to simple CD tracks of the combined instruments. Lancer then went through his music catalogue not once, but twice - once as "Yellow", the other in his rarely used male singing voice. Even with identical background music, the voices showed very different styles. After his male voice cover of "We Will Win" (a song not on his female song list) finished the second set, Alex went on stage to do an interview with the singer, to also be put on the recording he was making.

"That was an amazing cover, Lancer. How come I've never heard you perform it before?"

"Alex, there's two reasons. One is that all my concerts are typically done as Yellow, and it would be hard to pass off a single song done in my natural male voice without risking my cover. The second reason is a bit more obvious, in that's it is a pretty dangerous song to perform, as it's considered a song of the resistance movement, and is banned by the Invid. When we were in South America, and I was actively working with the resistance, I couldn't risk it, as I needed Yellow to retain the ability to move free. Now that we're here and North America, and we have what appears to be an Invid group following us up from there, such subterfuge is probably not necessary anymore. If I perform as Yellow, now, they couldn't help but figure out the connection between Yellow and me."

"That was a pretty moving cover, too. It sounds like you put a lot of your emotion in it."

"Every time I perform that song, I put everything I have in it; it's one of the reasons why, when I do sing it, it's near the end of the set. Minmei probably put everything she had into it, in the battle. She could never match that level of emotion in a studio, or on stage later; that's why all the album versions are just remixed edits of her battle performance. On the other hand, my emotions on this war are fresh, and ongoing."

"So they are for all of us. I was curious; where did you get that disc of your backup music? Normally you perform with live musicians."

"Originally, it was the background tracks for my album that I recorded a few months after adopting the Yellow persona, which resulted from my being shot down by the Invid during the April Fool's Massacre. When the Invid began shutting down transportation that fall, in response to the increase of freedom fighter activity, I knew I had to take the Yellow show on the road, and would have to do it without my band, which was splitting apart as far as possible, after too close a call on a raid. So, I went into the studio the night before we were to leave, and backed up all the instrumental tracks from the masters, and mixed what amounted to karaoke tracks, and saved them to a DVD. As long as I had access to a DVD player, I could make small performances, and the individual instrument tracks would allow me to put on a concert at any location with professional equipment. After sticking Carla on the last train out, and jumping off, I went back and got my jeep, which I'd already loaded with my wardrobe and portable sound system. The sound system died about a month before I met Scott and the others, but by that time my album and concerts had gotten so much publicity, that people were actually learning the music to try to entice me to perform, as they could provide live backup musicians. Over those three years, I used those concerts to piece together a resistance group that was equally adept at music and guerilla warfare. I last performed with them shortly before we met you and Noel; we raided a collaborator town that acted as a central processing and distribution point for cells and bio-diesel produced by the Invid for their lackeys. The concert was recorded, but I don't know if the recording survived. Heck, we had to stash their share of the take and run, before the band made it out of town, so I don't even know if they made it out alive. I'm glad to finally make a live album that isn't a bootleg being distributed of a concert somewhere, like those CDs Rand has."

After a few more questions, the interview ended.

"Alex, I know we're making a copy for each of us, plus some for dropping off in freedom fighter caches; shouldn't the rest of you add your own notes to the recording? It's not like there isn't enough space, and if something happens to all of us..."

"I hope it doesn't come to that; but, who knows what the future holds?"

"Okay, everyone. Come up on stage. We're going to leave our own notes on the recording as well."

"What kind of notes?" Rook asked.

"Whatever you want. Messages to be passed back home, shout-outs to those we've met along the way; anything you want to get off your chest."

"Hmm... tough call. Scott, you lead off while I think on it."

"Uh... I guess. Alex, how do I start the recording?"

"I've got the on/off switch over here, where I was using it for the interview. Just signal me to start and stop, as you need to."

**Interlude: Messages from the War**

"My name is Scott Bernard. I am a Lieutenant Commander in the Robotech Expeditionary Forces, 21st Squadron, Mars Division. After making landfall in Argentina, I assembled this resistance group in the march north to Reflex Point. The rest of my original squadron died in the attempt to make landfall on Earth, and in case I fail to make contact with the REF, I would like to say that my squadron fought well, and... and died bravely. No one is to blame for the destruction of Mars Division; at least, no human commander. We were simply outnumbered too badly from the outset, and even if we'd inflicted one hundred to one losses on the Invid that rose to meet us, they would still have won from superior numbers."

"I'm Lieutenant Alex Tyler, of REF Vulcan Division, Special Mecha Operations Squadron. I have been serving with Commander Bernard ever since my wife and I crashed as a result of an unconventional Invid attack that affected her while we were on a reconnaissance flight over South America. Over the last few months, we have determined that the Invid have developed a special interest in our group, possibly because of my wife and a civilian in our group being affected by the attack I mentioned, which appears to have been telepathic in nature. As a medical doctor in addition to my military training, I've had the two under my care. In fact, a specific group of Invid, led by what appears to be two human collaborators, has been following us ever since the attack, having tracked us all the way from the south to the north.

"My wife and I both served with the 15th ATAC, Armies of the Southern Cross, prior to being retrained by the REF in the year before the Invid arrival. I ask that, if we do not survive to do so ourselves, someone forward a copy of this recording to the other survivors of the 15th."

"My name is Noel Karen Freeman Tyler. Alex is my husband, and my uncle, Colonel Scott Freeman, is the commander of Vulcan Division. My parents and sister also serve in Vulcan Division as well. My music makes up the first half of the concert recording, a mix of classic covers and songs written by myself and Bowie Grant, my foster brother and former teammate in the 15th ATAC. Bowie left Earth prior to the Invid invasion, to lead his wife's people back to Tyrol.

"I found out during my Southern Cross service that my childhood was something much more bizarre than one could imagine. I was told I was adopted, yet I appeared to be half-Zentraedi - even more so than my foster sister, Dana Sterling. In reality, my parents, a human and a Zentraedi, had a daughter - in 2016, not 2013. That daughter showed intelligence much greater than a newborn, and an accelerated growth rate, and was indistinguishable from a five year old within five months, including walking and talking. Then, that child was kidnaped by a mad scientist, and was missing for a month. I was returned at that point to my parents, everyone believing that I was that daughter. In a way, I was - In the time Karen was missing, she underwent another abnormal aging period, and ended up growing to adult size. To hide that this had happened, she made a clone of herself - me - to return to her parents, and then joined the RDF under a false identity to guard Dana and me.

"It is hard to live up to a legend; Karen is my sister; my creator. She had a short musical career as 'Karen Ellison' - a career that should have been our mother's, had not bigots blackballed her from the industry after Project Songbird was canceled. Karen has shared the stage with Minmei, at the Hunters' wedding, to provide moral support and backup for Minmei, in case emotions overtook her friend. She went with the REF, where she revealed her true nature and powers to the REF forces loyal to the Hunters. She would later kill the traitorous clone of T.R. Edwards, to save the Hunters.

"Her mutant powers; how do I begin? Karen has all the powers that Zor theorized were possible through Protoculture manipulation. I, too, have these powers, but mine were a pale shadow of hers, even before they were disrupted by the Invid attack. Perhaps the powers were why I was attacked the way I was.

"If I do not survive this war, please send a copy of this disc to Karen Freeman, my sister, in Vulcan Division. I hope that if the worst comes to pass, that I can face death with the same fearlessness she did on multiple occasions, but lived to tell the tale."

"My name is Lance Belmont. I got the nickname "Lancer" from my middle initial being 'R'. I was originally a Lieutenant in the Manhattan Wing of the Civil Defense Flying Corps of the Southern Cross, before being seconded to the GMP for a mission in New Tokyo in 2027, to make use of my musical talents to support a planetary security project. That project was compromised by advance agents of the Masters, almost two years before the official beginning of the Masters' War, and I spent most of the time prior to that war mired in the investigation of what went wrong. I ended up serving as a local defense pilot for Tokyo for the duration of the war, as I was considered potentially tainted, and barred from transfer to the TASC. On the side, I made a name for myself on the Tokyo theater scene, playing females in such plays as a J-pop musical remake of _Madame Butterfly_.

"When the Masters were defeated, I jumped at the chance to return to the west, and was retrained to REF special forces specs by the training cadre of Vulcan Division, which at the time was located in Brazil. From there I was sent to help train the Manhattan forces for the expected invasion, and that allowed me to resume my theatrical career. It was ironic, then, when between training cycles, my performance company was on a tour of South America when the Invid arrived, and I was stuck in a fighter when I reported to the nearest base, to clear the way for the counter-attack from space. The counter-attack ended up aborted, thanks to the idiots in Mexico, and I was shot down. It was then that I was rescued by a young woman, and we made me up to look like a woman - something I had plenty of experience with on stage. From that subterfuge, Yellow Dancer was born. The details after that point are discussed in the interview elsewhere on the disc. My message is to all of Yellow's fans - never give up your dreams."

"My name is Jim Cooper, though no one has called me that in years. Usually, I go by 'Lunk', and I went by a couple other alias over the last few years. I was originally a Technical Sergeant in the Brasilia Defense Forces, and was certified as a Bio-Maintenance Engineer by the REF in my retraining after the Masters were destroyed. That's a Veritech Mechanic, for those of you non-military types. The unit my company was supported was destroyed by the Invid, and we ended up fighting for our lives, with practically no weaponry. Eventually, I was the only one left, having run from a certain-death situation, and feeling guilty for not being able to save my best friend. I went into hiding, feeling I had deserted my post, when in reality there had been nothing left to desert. It took Commander Bernard to shake me out of my survivor guilt. Thank you, Scott, for being a friend. My message is to let everyone back home know I made it North, and kicked serious butt on the way. I'm not acting like a coward anymore."

"Uh...m... My name is Rook Bartley. I'm originally from Cavern City, but left there after a misunderstanding with the locals - Rand, don't you DARE roll your eyes at me!" (Crashing sound from thrown chair) "Anyways, my mother and sister still live there, and I just want them to know that I do love them, no matter how... stubborn I might be, and I'll be back home as soon as I can."

"My name's Rand. I hope to be a writer after the war is over. I've been keeping notes as we've been traveling, so if I don't make it - though I'm sure I will - try to track me down and recover my journals. Too much knowledge has already been lost in the last twenty-five years."

"I'm Annie Labelle. I'm four-seven, and totally gorgeous. So, if you're looking for love on the road to Reflex Point, look me up."

"I-I don't know what my real name is, but I've gone by 'Marlene' ever since the others found me in the ruins of Point Kilo. By some chance you know who I am, I hope you can find me and help me remember."

"That's all of us," Alex said, in conclusion. "Five military, two freedom fighters, a teenager from hell and an amnesiac. Wish us luck; we need it. This was recorded 24 September, 2034, in the ruins of Reno, Nevada. May we all find what we seek, in the journey ahead."

**Chapter Three:**

"It is often thought that Tandler's Icarus Test Group came back with Carpenter's Task Force Mercury. If one looks at the actual equipment assigned to the two commands, though, their separate origins become obvious.

"Mercury had a few Legios, but mostly had to make do with Vulture colony defense space fighters, and a light super-dimensional cruiser that was originally built as an escort for the SDF-2, but ended up as one of the vessels blazing a trail for the SDF-3's mission, and looking for potential colony sites, after several smaller fold-capable craft were lost without a trace (intelligence recovered from the clones rescued by the 15th ATAC would later implicate advance forces of the Robotech Masters in the destruction of those scouts, when they were debriefed in 2032). After finishing a almost a decade of scouting, it followed the SDF-3 in its fold to Tyrol - making similar fold miscalculations as the larger ship. Once there, it started to undergo a refit to better fight the Masters and Invid (since samples of both technologies were scattered all over the city of Tiresia). It was during this refit that the ship was 'liberated' by its former XO on the behest of Dr. Lang and the Hunters, to warn Earth of the duplicity of the Council, which was being manipulated by the Edwards Conspiracy.

"On the other hand, Icarus Test Group was a crew of only four men, of age where they could have retired (had they not been stuck light-years from the nearest Earth colony, let alone Earth itself), and was launched several years after Carpenter's mission to Earth, and several months after the last colonial attempts to break the Masters' blockade of Earth. The ship was a highly automated variant of the Garfish Super-dimensional escort and supply ship, able to be flown (but not taken into combat) by four men. Its fold drive was a prototype, that was meant to try to correct the problems with those of the SDF-3 and later ships (like Carpenter's after refit, or those used by Venus & Mars Divisions, which were either already underway, or built and being loaded). It was also heavily loaded with enough infantry weapons of REF colonial tech vintage to arm a Tactical Corps battalion, and the plans for manufacturing more. It was hoped that the _R.S.S. Mars Base Sara_ would be able to run any existing Masters blockade, or evade and make for the Moon or Mars. But, it was not to be.

"The _Sara_ was laid low by its emergence from foldspace, in what had been a zone cleared of Zentraedi debris by the RDF and ASC. However, at the time of arrival, the area was littered with the debris from the final battle of the Masters' War, and a debris hit to the power plant sent surges into the system that damaged the comm and navigation systems, and the ship took even more damage in its reentry and landing."

- Zeus Bellow, The Road to Reflex Point

It was the middle of October when they finally reached the old Utah border. Invid patrols had been heavier than they expected in such a barren waste, and it had proved difficult just to get close enough to the farms south of Las Vegas to even attempt to steal the Protoculture for the next leg of their trip. The actual theft and escape delayed their departure until 1 October, and even that was under threat from increased patrols. Even the departure from Reno was painfully slow, with only about thirty kilometers traveled per day, from the stops to dodge the Invid and the low speed traveled to keep from kicking up dust that would give their position away. Then there were the famous Bonneville Salt Flats, but there were numerous wet spots this time of year. The group spent a nervous night on the 12th of the month in the middle of the ancient lake bed, frantically digging the truck out of axle-deep mud without much help from the mecha, as they had no place to stand, and were not even able to attempt hovering in guardian mode to attempt the rescue, from the awkward flight angle that would have been required.

After the salt flats, they turned south, looking for the fertile valley that was to the south of the Great Salt Lake. However, all they found was more desert - the last days of the Masters, and the Invid, had both taken their toll on the irrigation systems. They found a well-used (though currently empty) oasis used by the roving merchants that had become ubiquitous on Invid-occupied Earth, and set up camp. Scott and Rand went ahead into the next town on their Cyclones, with Annie tagging along, to see if they could find any information on the weapons traders they'd heard about, called "The Hole in the Wall". Lancer was going to take Lunk's truck out to scout for what was causing all the Invid activity, using Marlene as a form of divining rod.

"I don't like it," Alex said, as Lancer and Marlene prepared to leave. "Scott's not here to okay it."

"It has to be done," Lancer countered.

"But, just you and Marlene? That's a pretty big risk."

"Wait a minute," Noel interrupted. "Why don't Alex and I join you? Two of us trying to sense the Invid are better than one, and it doesn't debilitate me as much as it does her - though that may make her better for the job. All either of us would be here is in the way, and we really need to have Alex with us if it gets too bad."

"She's got good points, Alex. You gonna join us?"

"Might as well. Scott won't be as mad if we both go."

An hour's travel had produced no appreciable result, until they were stopped by two men on horseback.

"One false move and I'll make a lead mine of your innards!" one of them called out.

"What are you folks doin' out here in the middle of nowhere?" the other asked.

"We were out just driving around, and got lost," Lancer replied, dropping into a more local accent.

"Yeah?" the first one responded, looking at Marlene and Noel. "Appears to me you boys had a bit more on your minds than the road."

"If'n you must know," Lancer ad-libbed, "we're on our honeymoons. We were livin' down in New Mexico when the last war ended, and now that we gots family, we're tryin' to make it up to Montana, where Alex has some land he inherited from his pa."

"No wonder yer distracted - I'd be too! Those are the best-lookin' ladies I've seen since we got back!"

"Hush, Jesse!" the other snapped. "You folks might not know it, but you've really picked a bad time of the year to be on the road north. The weather's a lot worse, north of the desert, and there's outlaw groups all over the place. You're lucky to still have those wheels, and there aren't any gas stations this far north, since Monument was destroyed; you need a still if you're gonna make it out of Utah. Even worse, there's an Invid outpost up by the lake."

"Lake? The Salt Lake?"

"Yeah, up outside the ruins of the city. It's about the only area in the state like it was before the Zentraedi, but if you go in there now, you don't come back out."

"Woo-wee - I'm glad you warned us about that."

"Well, seein' how you folks are real nice people, we'll take ya where you can get the gear you'll need to make it the rest of the way north and survive. Just follow us." The two horsemen wheeled about, and started down a long-abandoned road.

"Well, what do you think?" Alex asked Lancer.

"I think we've found the way to The Hole in the Wall."

The two men led them to one of the crater cities common in the post-Zentraedi era - or at least the remains of one. To Lancer, it looked much like a roofless version of Rook's home town, Cavern City, right down to the entry tunnel. Unlike that hidden town in the south, this one had a weather-worn sign proclaiming it to be "New Provo", with a blue & gold jumpsuited cartoon character on it that looked like it stepped out of the mid-20th century - except that it was holding a GU-11 in a classic VF-1 pose. On entering the first crater of the complex, it was obvious that, while damaged by the Masters, it was Mother Nature that had finished off the town. Most of the crater was flooded, a waterfall cascading over the far side, where an irrigation aqueduct had broken its confines, and now poured into the city. Most of the connecting tunnels visible were partially or completely underwater.

One tunnel was still open, but it appeared to have been hastily carved after the fact, after the original entrance further down had become flooded. From this, it became apparent where the "Hole in the Wall" name came from. As they drove the short distance through the wall, an impressive sight took shape. Filling most of the crater was a spaceship; almost unrecognizable from the rubble. It was a Garfish-class colonial escort, its name "_Mars Base Sara_" partially covered by hull patches, to where it more resembled an actual Mars Base emblem that was applied to the more recent, nameless, fleet vessels. However, it was obvious from some of the anomalous protrusions that this was one of the fold-equipped Garfish, not the fold-less Guppy-class SDB. As such, it was an anomaly. It had been there too long to have been from Mars Division, and those were supposed to have been the first Garfish to arrive in the Solar System.

"She's old and rusty, just like her crew," Jesse commented, noticing their stares as he dismounted.

"Whose fleet was she with?" Alex asked. "Carpenter? Wolfe?"

"Neither. How much do you know about the REF?" Frank, the other rider, asked.

"A bit. Most of Noel's family left on the SDF-3. Maybe you know of the Freemans, of Skull Squadron?"

"You're Shannon's little girl?"

"Yes, sir," Noel answered, wondering why Alex was giving away part of their real identity.

"Your parents are two of the best pilots I've ever seen. When we left Tyrol, they were attacking Optera. It must have not gone well, because the Invid are here."

"No, they won," she replied, without thinking, getting glares from Lancer and Alex as a result.

"How do you know?"

"Some of our friends down south are from Mars Division, the group that came after Carpenter and Wolfe," Lancer saved, quickly. "They survived that slaughter in orbit that killed most of their units. They told us about that crazy clone that turned against the REF. He took control of the Regent's Invid, after Breetai killed the Regent, but that guy was killed. However, the Invid Regis had been missing almost two years by that time - because she was on her way here, and had written off her husband as a loss even before then." Lancer paused, when he saw an older gentleman (but much younger than the ancient horsemen) in a Mars Division uniform. "Who's that?"

"Don't rightly know. We found him six months ago, wandering from an escape pod, but he's not said a word all that time. We just call him Gabby, because he ain't," Jesse volunteered.

"Come on in to the ship, so we can show you what we have to trade," Frank said.

Entry into the ship was through a personnel airlock normally only used with a space umbilical, as if the Garfish had been sitting on its landing gear on level ground, the hatch would be about 50 feet in the air. In the cargo area, a spread of all types of weapons were laid out on several tables and stacked crates. Rocket launchers, limpet mines, and several generations of modular rifle systems, energy and projectile.

"Nice stuff," Lancer commented.

"Gen-u-ine army issue," Jesse replied.

"How did you end up with all this gear? Surely there was more than two of you flying this ship."

Frank answered this time. "Well, Dr. Lang, the civilian leader of the SDF-3 mission, is the greatest mind Earth has produced in modern times; a modern da Vinci. Back in '28, he created a new fold drive; told us it would take two years to get back, give or take. 'Course, at that time, most people on the mission thought it was 2024, thanks to the 4 years that the first fold missed, but Lang had found out otherwise, and realized time was running out. Two years would be better than four, and there indications in messages that finally got through from the Southern Cross that the Robotech Masters might have already reached here. So, he decided to combine a test of the new fold system with a shipment of as much infantry weaponry as he could cram in her. He recruited a bunch of us old coots that were too old for combat to fly her back."

"Is that why you're not fighting the Invid?"

"We've had our fill of fighting! Me, Jesse, Shorty, and Roy were all part of the SDF-1 crew in 2009; hell, we served with Admiral Nicholas Hayes back during the Global War, and he'd originally got us assigned to the SDF-1 to look after his daughter - without her knowing, of course. Lang got us in with the Hunters' group to aid those aliens, for the same purpose, and we were with them all the way through that campaign, until that traitor tried to take over the REF. We'd all been in uniform over 30 years by the time Lang pulled us in for the flight here, as the Hunters headed to Optera. We weren't expected to fight, and Lang put in a bunch of automated flight systems so that only four of us were needed. But, when we got here, the Southern Cross was gone, and the Masters dead; couldn't have been more than a week before. Worse, there was so much junk in orbit where we came out, that we barely survived to get to ground. The entire cargo area got vented, and we about lost our engines on the way in. It's a miracle we landed."

"So, you set up shop," Noel mused.

"Yep. The city had lost most of its defenses fighting those Tyrolean clones, and had actually played dead after the war ended, out of fear it would be overwhelmed by refugees from Monument and New Denver."

Alex quietly bit his tongue, wondering if Noel would hold back as well. She had suffered for WEEKS because there hadn't been a place for Alex and the others to take her in North America, as the eastern city-states had closed their borders out of fear of their own neighbors. They had passed a few hundred miles from this city, that by all indications from its now-flooded ruins would have easily have been able to handle their small caravan when intact, and had the medical facilities to treat his patients - especially Noel and Zor Prime. He couldn't blame these old soldiers for what their hosts had done, but it still made him rage inside about how much was lost because of it.

"For some reason, all their non-battery Protoculture had turned to Invid flowers - at least were able to explain that much to them. This crater had been their old military base, and had been the only area of the town destroyed in the attack. It was also the only place we had to land. They weren't too thrilled to see us, but we came to an agreement where we gave them about half our cargo for claim to the crater. We traded some more for the camouflage work you saw outside, and the new entrance was being dug when the Invid arrived. The Invid missed us, but most of the town was dead. The survivors took off; afraid the Invid would find out about the ship and hit us again. We think they ended up in some of the shanty towns a few hours ride away. Occasionally, some of those that left will send customers to us to trade food; we've got everything else we need."

"How bad are the engines? Anything messed up other than the hull?"

"The roof leaks, most of the power system was fried by a power surge, and while we could get the dang thing flying at a snail's pace, we couldn't reach space and we'd be sitting ducks for the Invid. You sure ask a lot of questions..."

"Well, Noel's not heard directly from her family in ages; I was kinda hoping..."

"The communications are shot to hell - we can still receive some, but not transmit. That's the bad thing - the fold system worked like a charm, but we never got the chance to tell Doc Lang about it."

"YAHOO!" Someone yelled from outside.

Frank took a peek outside. "Well, I'll be..."

"I wonder where they stole those?" Jesse added.

Lancer and Marlene went to look at what all the commotion was about, while the Tylers continued to examine the weapons.

"You know, I kinda expected something like this." Alex whispered to Noel.

"Like what?"

" 'Hole in the Wall'... That was the name of a gang hideout in the Old West, including Butch Cassidy and Sundance's Wild Bunch. It was a neutral ground shared by several gangs at once, and was never penetrated by the law until all the gangs were gone. With names like Frank and Jesse, and having served together so long, they probably got referred to as the" James Gang" long ago, and decided to keep up the Wild West theme here. I doubt they get much business, so they've probably supplemented their diet by rustling and banditry."

"Uh, Alex..." Lancer half-whispered as he ducked back inside. "I think we've got a problem. Come take a look at what the rest of their crew 'rustled up'."

"What is it - Uh-oh..." There in the small quasi-courtyard defined by the crater wall, were the other two members of the crew of the _Sara_, sitting on Scott and Rand's Cyclones. "Now, just HOW did they get those?"

"Apparently, Scott's bull-headedness got them locked up by the sheriff in Eureka, and while they and the sheriff were preoccupied with each other, those two 'liberated' the Cyclones. I think it's a good idea that we let this play out for a while, at least till we can get done here, then go after them. You know, given that WE'RE the ones trained for that kind of mission, you'd think Scott would let us do it, but that would be too logical..."

"What, and have them come here? They'd probably gotten themselves shot when Frank and Jesse held them up for the case of rations in the back of the jeep."

"Point taken."

"If you're done looking at the show outside, tell our hosts to come on in. Gabby's made dinner for us."

The stew was delicious, if a bit meat-heavy, and they were starting to unwind a bit, the old-timers playing a game that looked like a cross between rummy, poker and Fizbin. Gabby was still playing the gracious, though silent, host for most of it, before he went into the next compartment over and started warming up a communications unit.

"Didn't you say your communications were out?" Lancer asked.

"Yeah, that thing won't transmit. It will still receive, but not all that well; that's about it. It got hit by a power surge when the main power plant got clobbered by a piece of space debris. We still occasionally get messages from the Expeditionary Force, but we usually just ignore them - not like they're our business anymore."

"Gabby keeps turning it on like he's expectin' to hear from somebody," Jesse added, laughing.

"Who knows?" Shorty added. "Like Frank said, we don't listen to them, and if Gabby's seeing anything important, he's not sharing."

"Uhhnnn..." Marlene moaned, as Noel suddenly felt a migraine coming on.

"What is it, Marlene?" Lancer asked. "Are you hearing the Invid broadcasts again?"

"WHAAATTTT!?" the four old-timers shouted in unison.

"Calm down, boys, before you have a stroke!" Alex interjected. "I may be a doctor, but I'd rather not have any new patients. Back in the south, where we hail from, the Invid did something that nearly killed these two girls. All it does is give Noel headaches anymore, but it's so bad for Marlene that it's caused her to pass out if Invid get too close."

"What could do that?"

"We think it must have been some sort of mind attack. Marlene was closer to it than Noel, so she was hit harder. I guess it's time we be honest with you. We're not newlyweds. Noel is my wife, and she's who she says she is, but we've been married three years. Lancer and Marlene are just friends, though. Matter of fact, those two combat bikes belong to our fearless leader and our scout. Speaking of the team leader, you probably remember him from your last days on Tyrol - he's Dr. Lang's godson, that teenager that tried to tackle the Edwards clone in the courtroom during that joke of a trial. Our group was needing to resupply after we spent most of our ammo fighting the Invid constantly coming up from South America. We're trying to get to Reflex Point by spring."

"Why the hell do you want to go there?" Roy asked.

"Well, Noel and I were survivors from Monument; our unit linked up with a special REF unit that got here a few weeks after you did. Right before you left, the _Korra'ti_ folded from Earth to Tyrol, you might remember. After the final battle at Optera, they gave Noel's uncle Scott Freeman his own command, and sent that command here to Earth on the _Korra'ti_. It's fold engines acted funny, as usual, and got them here in a lot shorter time than most. Colonel Freeman has his command set up in Africa, and he's been working as part of an effort to force the Invid off Earth. The REF main fleet is supposed to arrive in spring, and so will Freeman's Vulcan Division. We're trying to rejoin our unit, friends and family for the final battle."

"You have some gumption - we could never try an overland trip - let alone come up from South America."

"Do you mind if I take a look at the transceiver?" Noel asked. "I might be able to do something with it."

"Go ahead. Gabby's the only one who uses it anyway."

"Thanks. Got any tools?"

"Over in the corner locker. Help yourself."

"Thank you -OWWWWW!" She grabbed her temple.

Marlene slumped to her knees, gasping. "The Invid - Outside!"

"They're after Gabby!" Roy yelled, grabbing an RL-6 from the weapon showroom and shooting at the lead trooper.

"Lay down some more cover fire!" Frank yelled, drawing his pistol. "I'll go try and fetch him!"

"No, wait," Lancer called, grabbing another RL-6. "I can move faster. Let me get him."

Lancer ran out, dropping one of the two troopers on the way. He tried to get Gabby to abandon the bag he was carrying, to no avail. The last Invid landed, to take a swipe at them, but Lancer was quicker, pumping a kinetic penetrator missile into the Invid's sensor at point blank range; so short, that the projectile continued out the back side of the mecha, spewing bits of nutrient and Invid pilot over the lot. As they stood up, Rand's voice echoed from the tunnel entrance.

"We've been looking all over for you!"

"Well, if you bozos would keep your eyes on your Cycs and your asses out of jail, you might have found us earlier!" Alex shouted back. "Come on in, and you can have the leftovers, and get your bikes back."

"You've got them?"

"Yeah, the bandits are some REF retirees trying to keep their mouths fed. We'll explain after you eat."

**Chapter Four:**

"Small miracles are my specialty. If you need something world-shaking, don't ask me; that's Karen's department." - Noel Freeman Tyler

"But, if you ask either of them, give people some advance warning, okay? There tends to be collateral damage when they deliberately attempt something..." - Alex Tyler, responding to his wife's joke above.

"You cowardly scum!" Scott screamed at Frank, knocking the old soldier down with a single punch.

"Cut them some slack, Scott!" Alex yelled back, interposing himself between Scott and the crew of the _Sara_. "If this had been a normal situation, they'd have been retired by now! They're GLOBAL WAR veterans, dammit! Just check their mission orders in the ship's log - they were being sent back to start retirement, after they turned over the ship and its contents to the ASC, and sent the navigation logs back to Lang.

"But, they came back to the aftermath of an apocalyptic space battle, and their ship barely survived arrival in a debris field. The superiors they were to report to were dead, their communications were offline, and the only place they could find to land had turned turtle and refused to allow contact with the outside world. That was one possibility not covered in their orders - that NONE of their objectives could be accomplished - not even filing the report! What were they supposed to do - starve, after their host city was destroyed, or abandon the shipload of weapons for REAL criminals to loot? It's not like the locals are all that friendly to outsiders - you got a taste of that yourself, after all."

"I... I... " Scott stuttered. Alex had caught Scott completely off-guard. It was the first time in the seven months they'd been together that Alex had really stood up to Scott forcibly, instead of just obeying orders, or trying to talk things out calmly. Of course, a good deal of Scott's closer rapport with the others was that the others had bonded more closely in that narrow escape in the subways of Uraba City (which itself was the culmination of months of bickering among the original six team members), and Scott had actually known Noel as a child. Alex was the only wild card in the group to him - other than his emotional difficulties with Marlene. "I'm sorry..." Scott whispered, his rage deflating into self-doubt.

Suddenly, a burst of radio static filled the room.

"I thought you said the radio was out?"

"The receiver barely works, but that's it. Noel's been working on it a while. The transmitter was knocked out by a power surge; something out of their league to fix - they may not look it now, but these four were part of the Hayes Raid. They're grunts, not techs. I wonder what it says about your godfather that he wouldn't risk one of his own techs on the test flight." Scott got a bit of a smirk on his face from that part of Alex's explanation.

The answer was simple - if something had gone wrong with the fold drive itself, there was nothing that even Lang could have done to fix it, so the ship was automated to the extreme, with the (mistaken) assumption that if the ship had a post-fold malfunction, the Cosmic Unit would send a repair team or a space tug, or at least send a certified pilot over. And, the Hayes Raid was the stuff of legend - after repeated attempts to get replenishment for his unit through official channels (from a logistics branch riddled with black marketeer corruption and hoarders that felt that only THEY knew what units needed), Nicholas Hayes personally led his task force's SEALs and Marines on a commando raid ON THEIR OWN FLEET SUPPLY BASE to secure the fuel depot, ammo dump and (most importantly) the food stores, as the food and fuel that should have lasted for another 6 months had all been consumed by civilian evacuees Hayes had refused to abandon to starve or (more likely) be killed. 35 years ago, questioning their bravery would have gotten Scott hospitalized, at best.

The transmission started coming in a bit more clearly, and they went in to see what was being sent.

"Expeditionary Force calling Earth Forces; Expeditionary Force calling Earth Forces. This is an alert for any forces still active in the Western Hemisphere. Please reply if you receive us."

Scott grabbed the headset from Gabby, and tried to reply. "We receive you com base... Do you receive? Come in com base...This is Mars Division calling Admiral Hunter; over."

The person on the other end apparently was unable to hear him, and Noel still had her head and upper torso under the console, working frantically with a soldering iron and parts scavenged from the ship's IFF system. The video finally came in, showing a young man in an REF fleet uniform.

"If anyone in the Western Hemisphere is reading this message, here is an update of the current situation with the Earth Liberation mission. Africa, Australia, and the parts of Asia bordering the Indian and Pacific Oceans have been liberated from the Invid. Most of the rest of Asia is either wasteland ignored by the Invid, or too cold for effective Flower growth. Naval forces and Vulcan Division are currently moving on the remaining areas of Europe under Invid domination. Everything is still on schedule for a March fleet offensive, and Admiral Hunter calls on all surviving forces to destroy as many military objectives, such as Invid outposts and collaborator havens, as possible before the start of the offensive."

"Hunter just won't give up," Jesse commented.

"He had good role models," Frank added. "Fokker, and Gloval; God rest their souls."

_If they only knew_, Noel thought, then yelled up to Scott "I've got the hyperspace transponder cross-wired to the transmitter - try now, Scott."

"Earth calling com base; Earth calling com base. Do you read me? This is Lieutenant Commander Scott Bernard, Twenty-First Squadron, Mars Division."

"We read you, Commander; where the hell have you been? We've had no contact with the first wave of Mars Division since the insertion. Report your status."

"Com base, Mars Division was destroyed during reentry. I've encountered only a few other survivors, and most of those are now presumably dead as well. Colonel Wolfe had negotiated a truce that had kept a substantial portion of Venus division and a number of Mars survivors safe, but circumstances led to the end of the truce, Wolfe's death, and destruction of most of the community the truce had protected. The number of survivors is unknown, but were widely scattered, according to two other REF personnel that visited the site a week later."

"Where are you reporting from? Our communications gear can't identify the transmitting station."

"I'm aboard the _R.S.S. Mars Base Sara_, in the ruins of New Provo, in the former state of Utah. Inform Dr. Lang that the experimental fold engines worked as expected, but the prior failure of the crew to report was due to damage taken on arrival, from collisions with debris left by the destruction of the ASC and Tyrolean fleets over Earth the week before their arrival. The crew survived, but the ship crashed here with severe damage, and loss of communications - we repaired the communications just moments ago."

"What other military personnel are with you?"

"There's the crew of the _Sara_, of course. I've also assembled a team of partisans and other military survivors, that traveled to North America with me. The team has two non-combatants, two civilian freedom fighters, two former Southern Vross that were retrained by Vulcan Division prior to the invasion, and two members of Vulcan Division that were knocked out of the air by some unknown form of Invid attack while on a scouting mission. There is also a Mars Division survivor here that was rescued by the Sara crew, that is apparently suffering from traumatic stress, and has been mute since he was found. From the nature of how he was found, I suspect he was an officer on an Ikazuchi-class vehicle. From what I saw during reentry... The Invid went after every escape vehicle that was used in low orbit or reentry - even held them in place in suicidal grapples to keep them from ejecting."

"And, the Vulcan Division personnel?"

"A married couple; Alex Tyler and Noel Freeman Tyler. You need to relay their presence to Vulcan."

"We'll do that immediately. Hold on; Admiral Hunter has just been informed of your contacting us. He will be joining the circuit in five seconds." There was a slight pause before the image split into two sections.

"Scott, is it really you?" Rick asked. Bernard had always looked stiff and too formal for his surroundings, Rick thought. Now, he looked like he'd actually aged much of the seven years he'd lost to fold time dilation, and as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders - a look Rick often saw on his wife's face, or on his own reflection in the mirror.

"Yes, Admiral. It's good to see you. Could you get word to Marlene's parents for me? She... She was killed in the insertion attempt."

"I'm sorry, Scott." God, no wonder he's in such shape. Survivor guilt plus loss of his intended. Lisa needs to know, too; she helped Scott pick out the engagement ring before the launch, and since Marlene's mother was Lisa's cousin, it would probably be best for her to break the news to them. This is going to be like losing Marlene twice for everyone involved.

"I swore then I'd not let anything stop me from completing my mission. I'll see you at Reflex Point, sir."

"I'll be glad to see you then, Scott. You said you were on the _Sara_. Is Frank Tandler there?"

"Yes, sir," Frank said, stepping up to the console.

"Frank, when we heard from Freeman what the situation was like on Earth, we realized you would have arrived around the time Monument fell. We weren't sure whether or not you'd even had a chance to make it to ground, since if you'd arrived during that last battle, you'd probably have been blasted to atoms by the Masters before the Southern Cross even knew you'd arrived. You have your retirement, now; all things considered, the cargo's not even worth guarding by this point, with the fleet arriving in five months. Since you left, a friend of the couple that's there with you came to Lang with Wolfe's ship, and a new set of fold equations that make the time for folds the same inside and out. I really WILL be there in five months, despite being over Tyrol right now."

"Well, Admiral, I think we'll stay here for now. When these youngsters get closer to the Invid command center, they'll probably be needing to arm more locals, that they can send back here once the routes are clear of the Invid. Someone's got to make sure that the weapons get to the right hands. Besides, we've got the only reliable electricity in the state, and I'm not even talking about the ship power. The locals wired us into their solar panels and batteries, and those survived when the city didn't."

"Who is the Mars Division survivor you picked up?"

"We don't know. He hasn't said a word since he got here. Gabby, Admiral Hunter wants to talk to you."

Gabby, who had been putting his armor on after hearing the original message, and hadn't noticed the others getting through on the formerly-broken radio, was half out the door when Frank caught him, and drug him back. That's when everyone got an even bigger shock. When Gabby stepped in front of the communications station, the split-screen popped back in.

"Dad - is that you?" The tech who had been reading the earlier call to arms said, clearly shocked.

""T-Tommy? It-it's been so long. I could see you, but I- I couldn't reply..."

Rick quickly interrupted. "Frank, Scott - let these two talk privately. I'll call back in three hours, and by then I might have a relay up to the Tylers' family in Africa as well."

"Yes, sir - see you then."

Scott and Rand had gone back for Rook and Lunk before trailing the Cyclones here, but the mecha were slowly being leap-frogged this direction by Rook and Lunk (using Rook's Cyclone for the legs back to half the mecha each time) until Rand and Lancer went back to help with the truck; by dark, all the mecha were in the compound. While they were gone, Scott, Alex and Frank began planning an assault on the Invid telepathic broadcast relay that was located in the ruins of Salt Lake City's suburbs. It was the main communications link between Reflex Point, and Invid patrols operating on the Pacific coast, as well as the farms to the south. If it was taken out, the Invid would have to rebuild it, or have to send part of their forces to guard the farms, and curtail coastal patrols. The first was unlikely - it seemed that the Invid were in retreat, despite their potential numerical superiority, and rarely moved to take back lost areas. The most likely explanation is that they KNEW the REF was coming, and were conserving their forces.

It pretty much came down to firepower. Four people COULD operate the weapons of the Garfish, if it was left on autopilot; no one was battle-flight-qualified for it, anyway, and the damage it had took made combat maneuvering unlikely even in the hands of an expert. Of course, if they used it, there was no place for it to run to that the Invid wouldn't find. But, it wasn't like they could leave it here, either. Eventually, the Invid WOULD come to see what killed the ones that had been chasing Gabby. Looking like a simple camp in the ruins doesn't work when you have a convoy escort destroyer sitting on blocks in the front yard. So, a plan came together.

Everyone would spend the next day either moving the ship's contents into the dry areas of the ruins, or getting the _Sara_ ready for her final run, in many ways emulating the fate of the base she was named for. She would make a headlong run at the tower, escorted by the Alphas, either blowing it up with its weapons or, failing that, setting the self-destruct before ramming, the crew ejecting prior to impact. If the kamikaze attack isn't necessary, then they would activate the second set of coordinates in the autopilot, eject, and the _Sara_ would fly on alone either to be shot down on its flight to nowhere, or land and sink in Lake Superior offshore of the Duluth ruins, where it could be salvaged by freedom fighter bands or REF lead elements in the spring for use against Reflex Point. It was a very simple plan, and no doubt would be modified further by the others once they brought it up to the others.

Scott got the first turn at the communications console after Gabby, whom everyone now knew to be Lieutenant Bateman - a career NCO that was given an officer's commission due to the shortage of manpower for Mars Division (and like Scott, one of the natural-born minority of the force). After about an hour, Scott emerged with a determined look on his face.

"Frank, You had a supply of REF uniforms on board as part of the supplies, correct?"

"Yep, we were to provide those to the Southern Cross for use and duplication, in order to get them and the REF back using similar uniforms - especially since the this suit type was made specifically to wear underneath Cyclones, and we had the design specs for the bike prototypes on computers meant for Robotech Research. Hell, we got a Mark 30 prototype somewhere around here, shipped disassembled in a crate. Why you asking?"

"I need you to break out the rank insignia. Part of my orders was to see that you four and Gabby get promotions before your retirement, tomorrow. Plus, Lancer, Alex and I are also getting promotions; Lancer's actually getting two - he's long overdue for it. Spending most of the last three years in drag as an espionage agent and saboteur, with no official support, is definitely going above and beyond the call of duty. Don't tell him, but he's up for the Medal, among other awards, once the war's over and the REF can fully document things; until then, he'll have to make do with a Distinguished Service Cross - see if you can dig one up."

"Well, I'll be..." Roy said to himself. "I don't think I'd ever have it in me to do THAT for my country."

"Yeah, it kinda blew our minds when we found out he wasn't a woman. Alex, Noel; you're up."

"Don't know how long it will take us," Alex replied. "We've got family reunion type stuff to deal with, plus we've technically been doing the mission we were sent out for originally, so we've got a debrief of the last seven months coming up as well. We might still be talking at dawn."

"Don't forget to talk with Karen about Marlene - if anyone can help, she can."

"I'll see what she can do," Noel answered quickly, steering Alex into the privacy of the curtains that they'd set up around the transceiver while Gabby had been talking. "Scott's hiding something," she whispered into her husband's ear, once inside.

"What makes you think so?"

"I'm getting a feeling in my gut that things didn't go well in his personal calls. Despite everything, he still holds himself responsible for his fiancee's death. It isn't healthy. You base your life on grief or revenge, and all you will do is destroy what humanity remains inside. Look what it did to Edwards, and almost did to Zor Prime. If I hadn't intervened, it WOULD have done it to Zor - straight to the grave."

"My wife, the psychoanalyst."

"Don't laugh; telepathy and empathy - well, mostly empathy right now - make diagnosis a bit easier. And, don't forget, Karen did telepathic raids on the minds of all the shrinks that studied her quick mental development, and when she made me, she passed that information to me. I could probably get graduate degrees in medicine and psychology in a couple years of advanced classes, if I wanted, if they let me test out of stuff."

"Have you noticed the way he acts around 'our' Marlene?"

"He's falling for her - it's not just her reminding him in some way of his Marlene. In fact, those memories could do more harm than good, if he doesn't get his head straight. If he can get past that, he'll start to heal."

"Com Base, this is Tyler. Open up the relay to Africa Base."

"Connection in five seconds, Lieutenant," the operator replied.

"Alex, Noel!" Scott Freeman called out; Noel's parents and sister were standing behind them, along with most of their friends still on Earth. Scott's wife was absent, but given the time of morning there, she was with her daughters. "We thought you were dead. What happened?"

"We nearly were, on a couple occasions. Sis, did you feel anything when you thought I died?"

"Feel anything? It about felt like _I_ died, and I ended up in the hospital under observation for a week. It was even worse than what I felt when you nearly died saving Zor. It was like I was burning alive, and suffocating at the same time - that's not counting the psychic barrage."

"Sounds like what I felt, only I was a lot closer. And there's a girl here that was at point-blank range, and she got clobbered into near-full amnesia and regression to childhood by it. Our powers made us more vulnerable at a distance, I guess. I wonder if it even was a weapon - given it hit telepaths, it might have been an accident involving a human in an Invid lab, or raiders attacking a hive that accidentally linked into something when they died."

"And your abilities?"

"They've been pretty much out of order ever since. I was put into a five hour coma, and the only reason I didn't become a greasy spot was Alex sacrificed both our Veritechs to wrestle mine out of a dive, and access the maintenance panels to cut the engines, as we hit the ground. After I woke up, my powers were even less present than they'd been before the Masters' arrival, if that's possible, and I've only started sensing others' emotions again in the last month or so, and the first indication of any other ability was last month, when I did an instinctive blind teleport to save us from an avalanche, and the exertion caused me to pass out even before we hit the ground."

"Well, now that I know you're alive, let me try to reach your mind - if we can make contact, I can temporarily copy some of that intel so we can spend more time talking."

"Go for it."

"Eww... Alex, I got some of it as a bounce off her, from your mind, but her mind is a mess. It's like trying to contact a sentient machine like Janice or a Haydonite - in other words, about as much effort needed to get even surface thoughts as it would take to do a hostile telepathic interrogation of an Invid organic computer. I don't know how well I could do it even in the same room with her. It looks like, unless we risk flying to you, we're going to be limited to radio, since that event affecting me all the way over here resulted in medical orders not to teleport. Now, what's this about a similarly-affected normal person?"

"We call her Marlene. Besides her amnesia, she's put under severe stress and anxiety, if not pain, in the presence of Invid telepathic broadcasts, even mecha pilots if they're within a kilometer or so."

"I'm using Alex's perceptions of her to reach out for her mind - at least your mind can be used as a repeater, Noel. I couldn't even attempt this otherwise. Uhh... wow - I thought YOUR mind was in bad shape, little sister. I don't think I'd attempt a touch mind meld with her with a Garudan high priest as a spirit guide. I think she's a lost cause, for now. Maybe after she has a year or two to recover..."

"Well, you gave it your best shot. So, how are things in the free world?"

From there, the conversation turned to current events, and the real after-action reports. It was four hours later by the time they had to break connection, from the communications link reaching its limits from the few satellites available (all put into orbit at lunar distance) to use as relays to the hyperspace system.

"Scott, tell me how this is gonna work, again?" Rand asked. He still wasn't too thrilled with the first part of the plan. Rand was going to be piloting an Alpha this mission, and was dreading his first mission since coming ashore. The Beta, which Rand spent more time in normally (even if just there to practice, while Scott flew the combined mecha) would be in the more capable hands of Lancer, with Alex and Rook in the other two Alphas. Not knowing the effect the attack might have on Noel, she'd sit out the mission, with Lunk, Annie, Marlene and Gabby.

"Invid will typically go for the biggest target first, so we're going to have to circle around and attack the tower with the fighters, to allow the ship to come in closer. The weapons are so out of calibration they can't be trusted at over a couple kilometers, and we'd need a spaceport to get them fixed right; or at least a ship maintenance team. That thing's a bit out of Lunk's league."

"But, how long will we have to hold out? These Invid seem to be smarter than their southern relatives."

"We'll hold as long as we have to. Who knows - we might get lucky and bring down the tower ourselves."

"Lucky ? Since when did you believe in Luck, Scott?:"

"Hmph. Rand, you're with me on the first pass, coming in from the lake. Alex, Rook, you come in from the Northeast, next. Lancer, you're the third wave on your own - launch your heavy missiles at the tower, then try to pick off any Invid that get in behind us."

The five plane formation spit apart over the Bonneville flats that had given them so much trouble on the ground the week before, each taking a different circular route to the tower. Each group made their attack runs, with little effect on the tower - not even the heavy missiles of the Beta did more than shake the tower.

They didn't need to hear a war whoop from the crew of the _Sara_ to know the Garfish had arrived on the scene - the sudden pauses of the Invid told that, and even allowed the fighters to pick off a few that stopped dodging while assessing the new situation. The pursued quickly became the pursuers, as the fighters began chasing the Invid, who in turn were converging on the warship. But even the warship's weapons were only blowing chunks off the tower, not causing major structural damage. Then, the ship shuddered from a kamikaze Invid strike.

"Damn!"

"What is it, Frank?" Alex asked, dreading the answer.

"We've been hit bad... The turret fire control is out, and the primary self-destruct is out too. If we're gonna ram, we'll have to do it the hard way."

"The hard way?" Scott said to himself, then realized just what that meant. "Don't do it, Frank!"

"Don't have much choice, sonny. We're gonna have to stay aboard to hit the manual destruct."

"Frank," a weak voice came on. "I ain't gonna make it anyway - that hit hurt me, inside. You all go on... I'll handle it."

"You sure, Shorty?"

"Call me by my name, this last time, Jesse. You say you're tired of fightin'. Prove it, by living."

"You got it, Owen. You heard him, guys; let's get out of here. We'll buy a round for you in town."

The radio cut out, then the ship accelerated, ramming the tower. The escape pod jettisoned right after impact - Frank, Jesse and Roy weren't exactly high school sprinters anymore, and they'd barely made it into the pod before Owen had kicked the engines into overdrive. A second later, the ship blew, taking the tower out, along with all its support facilities. The surviving Invid fled, leaving the scene quickly in the direction of Reflex Point. Lancer flew down to pick up the three survivors, then had Alex land and join the two mecha, so Lancer could fly back as Alex tended to their wounds. From the low altitude, still being on board the Garfish during the impact, and not having adequate time between ejection and the detonation, the old soldiers were pretty shaken up, and needed some medical attention - nothing that would be serious for younger men, but better safe than sorry for people in their condition.

That night, the mecha stowed in one of the few dry underground bunkers at Hole in the Wall, they all sat around the campfire (well, except Marlene, who was, as expected, hit hard by the psychic effects of the attack). The old-timers spun yarns, half-truth, half-exaggeration, of their adventures in the Global War, and aboard the SDF-1 in its two periods in space. Probably the hardest story to believe was starring Noel's father, Owen, and Jesse, and a drunken bet at Rick Hunter's bachelor party that turned into a panty raid on the full-size Zentraedi quarters aboard the Factory Satellite. The makeshift wake was finally drawn to a close by Lunk's toast.

"To Lieutenant Owen; scoundrel, friend, and soldier - a hero to the end."

"To absent friends..." they all said, in unison.

**Chapter Five:**

"Delta-Six was huge; a miniature city under a plexiplas dome lined with the same video technology that turned parts of old Las Vegas into an outdoor theater. When it was built, the exterior part of the dome was meant to protect the buildings below from rockfalls while allowing sky simulation, not hold out the exterior elements. After all, it was built in an underground cavern that no one expected to ever be breached - at least not without the contents being vaporized. That the dome survived having the cavern roof fragmented by a near miss, then washed away over the intervening years, is a testament to the design of the facility." - Rand, Notes on the Run (textbook edition)

They spent a few nerve-wracking days at Hole in the Wall, watching Invid flyovers, and a couple landings in the area where they'd moved the dead Invid to. To keep their minds off of the threat, they helped seal, pump out and clean some of the flooded areas, giving the remaining three old men and their middle-aged guest an easily defensible underground to run their weapons store from. Lunk also gave the solar & wind generator systems a checkup, as best as he could with his mechanical and electrical training, and relocated some of the power storage units from the panel & mill farm to the tunnels for more power security. For once, Lunk was calling the shots while Scott, Lancer and Rand did as they were told.

Of course, Alex made use of the time (and got out of the heavy labor) giving all the other males present a checkup (although that took a bit of persuasion when it came time for the rubber glove treatment). Noel did the much lighter duty of giving the girls their checkups, though it kind of threw her when she realized that all three of the others were virgins. Rook had been severely beaten by a rival gang, but only had they not raped her, she apparently was so insecure over it all that she'd not had any sort of relationship since. Annie had gotten "married" back in the jungle, but either her very naive young "husband" was completely ignorant or incapable of sex - which may have been why she left - then again, she'd been a tease even before the others met her. One had to wonder what kind of environment she'd been in between losing her parents and blundering into the freedom-fighter business. Marlene, of course, was a bit of a mystery, but odds are she'd been one of the Mars Division clones.

It turned out that Gabby had been a single father, having lost his wife to one of the plagues that ravaged the world during the post-Dolza reconstruction era, and quite the accomplished cook. He ended up giving cooking lessons to the women, but Rand ended up there more often than not - and probably learned more.

Finally, the Invid calmed down enough for them to return the borrowed horses to Eureka, and they brought Frank, Jesse and Roy along to make restitution for some of their earlier heists, mostly in the form of some weapons for the sheriff and deputies, and some less military items (like camping and survival gear) for the owners of the rustled animals. The locals were a bit wary of the whole matter, but when told of the sacrifice the old soldiers had made (and Frank trading the bartender a rifle to pay for a round in Owen's memory), they began to open up. By evening, Alex was mediating a deal being made to trade ammunition and weapons to the town in exchange for a steady supply of food to be shipped to the retirees, with the town reselling some of the weapons for its own needs, and pointing larger-scale buyers in the direction of the retirees' armory. At least, Alex hoped the others would remember the deal in the morning - by the time it was concluded, he was the only sober person in the bar, Scott and the others having left earlier.

They finally resumed the trip to Reflex Point on the morning of 25 October, heading towards the remains of Zentraedi-blasted Salina, and Interstate 70. Once on the interstate, they continued their trip east, fairly confident that the path ahead would be smooth sailing, as many of the ski resorts had been reopened in the 2020s to handle the recreation needs of New Denver and Monument, and the roads had been restored and maintained by the ASC Mountain Division. Of course, that would be if the weather cooperated. They were barely into Colorado when bad weather hit - then got worse - and worse. They were only making a few miles a day - when they were actually moving. And, the biggest challenge was ahead, of the mountain pass that had once intimidated even the railroad barons and interstate contractors.

And when Alex went ahead to scout, he brought back bad news - one whole side of the canyon had caved in - possibly even hit by a stray blast from a Masters' beam weapon or a huge piece of debris coming in at meteoric speed. They ended up backtracking back down the mountain to where they could cross over to the other side of the canyon, where the rail line and old road were, but would still have to climb the debris when they got to that point. All in a blinding storm that seemed to lessen, but never end. They even considered going back, and taking their chances near the Invid farm to the south - but Marlene looked at them like "Are you out of your mind?" without saying a word, and all discussion of that ended right there.

**From the Journal of Alex Tyler:**

_4 November:_ I hate being a tow truck driver! I think we've been doing this for three weeks now, at according the calendar in the tank's display. It's been hard to tell - with all the storms, and the little progress we manage each day, the days have started to blur. We had to switch to the back roads on the 22nd, and some of those back road maps date from before Dolza, so who knows what the real road conditions are. What scouting I did using the hovertank only let me see general conditions - the snow's so deep that what the surface is like underneath the snow - or even how far UNDER the snow that surface is, is anyone's guess. Part of the delay was rigging the skis onto the Veritechs' landing gear - we had THOUGHT we could walk them through, but after having to dig out of holes where 2 meters deep became 10, that the hovertank and truck easily drove over before the battloids broke through, we abandoned that idea real quick. While I knew, on some level, that the Veritechs had the skis as part of their landing gear package, not even Lunk or Scott knew how deploy the things. It hadn't even crossed our minds to use them in Colombia, as we only had one area that was snowy, and all the aircraft flew over it, en route to the Mountain Squad fortress we had to blow through. And, back in California, we slogged through in Battloid, and only parked in Jet mode.

The worst thing is that the hovertank makes a pretty poor vehicle for towing, because it doesn't make direct contact with the surface. Of course, it also doesn't have to worry about getting stuck in the snow, either. The main thing I'm doing is using my superior sensors to pick the route, and if I pick wrong, I can pull the tow table taut to keep the truck from sinking into the snow too deeply. Other than that, I'm just here to add a little bit of pull to the truck's own. At least when we get through to I-25, I'll know the route better, from traveling it 4 years ago. But when will that be? I'm beginning to dread the jokes we made back in Donner Pass, six weeks ago. THIS is what kind of conditions the Donner party really had to face, after all.

_9 November?:_ This latest storm has been the worst one yet. We've been holed up in this snow shelter for, well, I don't know how long - at least a day and a half. Those of us with watches took them off when the cold weather hit, for comfort reasons, and haven't been carrying them on us. We had to stop on the 7th, and I'm glad I remembered enough of my childhood snow engineering to marshal everyone in near-whiteout conditions into building this, though the Cyclones were laboring after three hours of work in -40 wind chill - I don't think we'd have pulled it off without them. Once we were all inside, Lunk rigged one of the spare CO2 scrubbers he had in his parts crate to operate on a deadman's switch, so whoever's on safety watch has to keep the switch held, or the scrubber kicks on. Of course, the scrubber will be running every time the person on duty has to take their hands off it to clear the PVC pipe we're using for ventilation. Here's hoping you're reading this in a war archive, not finding this as a last entry on a bunch of half-thawed corpses found in the mountains after the war.

_11 November?:_ Well, the storm's stopped. I'm writing this down before we start digging ourselves out, while we're waiting for the self-heating rations to warm up (we're gonna need warm food in us for this cold work ahead). We'll need to get out as quick as we can, for the simple fact none of us has gone in days.

_12 November:_ It turns out we were down there longer than we thought. We've gotten the truck exposed (we can hardly say it's clear - the snow's too deep to move it), and we're working on the hovertank and Beta now. Now that we have actual visibility, it appears that if we'd gone another 200 or so meters, we'd have been able to shelter in actual buildings - what looks like an equipment garage and some cabins, possibly related to an old ski resort, were just ahead, with a road going up one of the side valleys. Then again, the closer one gets to one of those, the more likely an avalanche. We'll start beating down a path to those buildings, and spend the night there. Then, after a couple nights of real recovery, weather willing, the snow will have set enough for us to get back on the road, and we'll have our own energy back.

_23 November_ - Thanksgiving day: Yesterday was pretty bad. Scott had a bit of a personal setback in his recovery from his survivor guilt. We started spotting some wreckage scattered amongst the drifts around noon, and we found the main crash site a couple hours later. It had been a Mars Division Horizon, probably damaged during reentry as it was WAY off course, and it had hit the mountainside hard - it wasn't a blown landing, with the way it hit - if the bridge crew had been alive at impact, they must have been riding her down with no ability to steer her, as it was nearly head-on with the slope. Thank God it wasn't his ship - I don't know if any of us could have handled it. Still, it almost knocked him back to his state at Point K. I left him with Noel and Marlene, and the rest of us searched the debris. We recovered some of the supplies whose shipping containers survived the bunkers being burst in the impact; but we also found the "neck" of the craft - the cyclone troopers were all still locked into their gravity couches, killed by the impact. In fact, the neck and half of one bunker were the only parts of the craft recognizable as being what they were. We took their names, and buried them this morning in a cairn, still in their armor, while Noel threw together a small Thanksgiving dinner from our food on hand. We had to explain the ideas behind the 400 year old holiday to those who never lived here in the old US; but they caught on quickly, and the nature of the observation served as a counterpoint to the task we'd had that morning. We needed the reminder that as bad as things were, some had suffered worse, and we had better days to look forward to.

_3 December:_ A funny thing happened on the way over the Rockies...

The caravan was half-way up a long slope, near a point where half the mountainside was missing, either from an errant attack from the Masters or Invid, or just natural erosion (but it was a BIG collapse, which tended to suggest something not natural). Alex and Noel swapped out seats in the space-modified hovertank every few hours, with Annie and Marlene getting the luxury of full-time use of the hovertank's rumbleseat, which was enclosed and heated separately from the main seat in vehicle mode. Lunk was having to tough it out in his truck, which was doing the majority of the towing. Thankfully the fighters had inertial systems derived from the old FPA (all veritechs made for the REF and ASC did - in fact, the system is what made military and civilian hovercraft even possible), and towing the four Alphas and the Beta was only about as much a burden on the poor truck as pulling one of them without the system on. The downside, the reason the VHT was in the tow train at its head, was that such reduction of mass also meant that despite being much lighter in real mass, the truck could easily drag the whole caravan over the cliff to oblivion, from the mecha having so much mass offset. The VHT would at least have a fighting chance to keep the truck from falling, as it retained a lot of its mass, even when hovering.

Everyone else was walking, checking the path for obstructions, ready to hop into a cockpit to steer the nosegear of a veritech around a blockage or a corner, or to occasionally warm up. The most popular mecha for that was the Beta, which happened to have their field toilet in the bomb/passenger compartment (and one tends to get the urge to go, when one thaws a bit). Earlier in the day, those on foot had to be careful not to outrun the vehicles. But, as night approached, the storm picked up, and they had to struggle to keep up with the truck. They actually had been looking for a safe place to stop for the night for the last hour, or about the last couple hundred meters, but hadn't had much luck in finding a level spot. They might have to reach the apex of the slide, a couple more hundred meters ahead, and camp in the wind's full force just to be on the level.

Suddenly, Rand called for them to stop, on an area that looked none too stable.

"That's amazing!" he exclaimed, waving the ground-penetrating multi-sensor he'd been carrying while on point, closer to the ground with each pass. "There's something underneath us!"

"Yeah, we know, Rand," Rook smarted off, tired from the struggle of he day. "It's called ice."

"Rand, what is it?" Scott asked, ignoring Rook's snipe.

"I'm getting readings indicating a large open space and a massive energy source under the ground. Part of it is just under the surface."

"That can't be...Is it a building?"

"No, it's way too big to be a building. And it's just under this snow!"

"Come on, Rand," Rook chided. "You're just wasting our time."

Rand brushed away the snow with his free hand, clearing off an area about the size of a window. His eyes seem to bulge, then he turned to Rook. "You don't believe it... So I'm wasting my time... Okay, take a look for yourself." He pushed Rook up to the spot; the others followed, led by Noel.

"Huh?" Rook gasped, startled by the sight. "It's - it's a city under the ice - it looks almost intact."

Noel looked next, thought for a second, then pulled off her gloves and rapped the surface with her knuckles. "That's not ice, folks. If anything, it's a polymer like our cockpit canopies. But, it's a lot thicker."

"Sorry, folks," Scott interjected. "We don't have time to play amateur archaeologist. There's no time to explore subterranean ghost towns."

"Even towns that aren't supposed to be there?" Alex asked. "Something's really wrong here."

As Alex and Scott debated, Rand took off running for the hovertank, muttering about the place being packed with supplies. Too late, they realized his intentions.

"Rand, get out of my TANK!" Alex yelled, as Rand transformed the tank to battloid, still roped to the truck and the other mecha. He managed three steps, Annie and Marlene yelling at him, before the air was split by a thundering crash from the dome giving way from the ground pressure under the mecha's feet. The Spartacus disappeared from sight, feet first, dragging in the truck and the lead Alpha behind it. "Oh, my God!"

Everyone ran as close to the edge as they thought was safe, Scott going for Rook's Alpha, which was teetering on the edge. It was soon apparent that the reason it all wasn't dragged in, was that the mecha had landed on the roof of a tall building, that had to have been built to specs normally reserved for strategic value structures. Rand was already transforming back to transport mode.

"Hey guys! Come on down!" Rand yelled up." It's below freezing down here, but that's better than what's up there. And, there's even a cargo elevator on the roof!" This was followed by screams, as Annie and Marlene started pummeling him with the loose objects from their part of the cockpit, for endangering them.

Once they got the rearmost Alphas in Battloid, they were able to pull Rook's Alpha back, then together lowered the truck to the roof, from where its front bumper had been hanging a meter off the roof. The aircraft all hovered down to street level in Battloid, while the truck and hovertank took the elevator down. Once town to ground level, they split up to investigate. The town seemed to be set up for a summer environment, though sheeted with ice in many locations from sprinkler systems that had apparently ran for months since the temperatures had fallen, inside and out, to sub-freezing levels. There even appeared to be an artificial weather system, meant to produce light rain and mists, that ended up producing a product not too different than the man-made snow of the old ski resorts. The town was a mess - especially since many of the shops appeared to have been open to the streets.

Rook, Rand, Marlene, Annie and Noel went out exploring on the street level, as much for the thrill of exploring as for looking for supplies, while the others were preparing to go into the undercity. It appeared the building they'd landed on was the community's government center, and had numerous sublevels, dedicated to infrastructure.

"Scott, look at this," Lancer called, walking into the geothermal tap area. "I found this in the telex machine."

"'To the people of Denver...'" Scott read aloud, then read the rest quietly. "Its an evacuation notice from the night the Zentraedi fleet arrived. This must be Denver."

"No, it can't be," Alex piped in, returning from the other side of the control room.

"Are you sure?"

"I can give four reasons. First of all, Denver WAS destroyed by the Zentraedi; when I was part of the refugee convoy from Monument, driving to Mexico, we camped one night on the rim of the crater where old Denver used to be. Second, Denver was a MUCH larger city than what we see down here. Where are the suburbs, the airport, sports stadiums, and skyscrapers? And, how did it get surrounded by rock? Third, Denver was actually located on the Great Plains, where the foothills faded into the plains. You had to drive about an hour to get to the mountains from Denver in the 20th century. Lastly, most of the high-tech gear in here was made by a manufacturer that didn't exist until after Dolza, when what was left of several different companies merged. Lancer's telex machine was probably a museum piece that wasn't even hooked up."

"Then, what is this place?" Lunk asked.

"I've got an idea, but to check it out, we'll need to find the security areas and find a way into them."

"I think I can manage that," Lancer said. "Lunk, you want to help me look?"

"Sure, after I fix the damage Rand caused to our vehicles. Not much else I can do down here."

Scott took off almost immediately in pursuit of the others, when he and Alex got back to street level. A minute later, Noel showed up, pushing a cart of Protoculture cells and food, mostly civilian food packed using the same technology as military rations, or frozen.

"Nice haul. Where did you get it?"

"There's an open air mall a couple blocks away. The weird thing is that it was set up to accept Southern Cross & UEG pay account cards as the only means of payment; not that it mattered."

"I doubt you were able to buy those cells."

"Actually, those came from one of the armories. Every block has a clearly marked armory with small arms and armor, and even a couple motorcycles sitting in odd-looking dock units. The bikes were Protoculture powered, and they had these cells there to refuel."

"You said an open-air mall?"

Noel looked around at drifts of snow and chunks of ice. "I guess this snow and ice was unintentional."

"Yeah. The dome we came through was an artificial sky system, but it's probably not worked since the mountain was blown off it. It was cracked by that blast, and the ice is from meltwater that came through the cracks. The snow is from the artificial rain system; the climate was supposed to stay between 20 and 25 Celsius at all times, from being underground, with artificial rain to help wash the streets and keep the landscaping green - but there's little difference between theatrical rain machines and ski resorts' artificial snow machines, other than volume and operating temperature. Once the natural temperature of the cavern was compromised, all that rain became ice."

"I can't believe this place. How could it exist?"

"In what way?"

"The buildings are mostly civilian; the food is civilian too, but long shelf life stuff - and all of it packaged during the Masters War. The stores appeared to be self-service, in a way that no civilian store would have been in Monument, and there's no evidence of people having ever been in the buildings - at least not in the last few years. Rand and Annie were pigging out in the floor of the grocery store, and when they left, I saw a robot come out, clean up the mess they left, and it also restocked the shelves. It wouldn't let me out of the store until I gave it my old Southern Cross ID to 'pay' for their food. I guess I woke up the robotic store staff when I was messing with the register."

"There's a long, twisted, story behind this place, if it's what I think it is. Lancer's supposed to be looking for the proof right now. If he finds it, I'll explain it to everyone, tonight. Now, let's go help Lunk fix the truck and Scott's Alpha, so we'll have more free time later."

They'd just finished working on the landing gear when Scott & Marlene ran in, out of breath, saying the Invid were coming. It was decided to draw the Invid inside and use Cyclones, as to attempt to leave while the Invid were outside would be suicidal. However, in an urban environment, it would be the Invid at a disadvantage.

Alex and Noel went after one of the two Pincers that had been the advance units through the hole, attacking aggressively. One would act as a distraction, as the other moved to try to get a clean shot on the vulnerable sensor plate. Finally, Noel ended the fight by driving one of her CADS through the plate. They then caught up with the others as they battled the other Pincer, their arrival providing the distraction needed for Scott to take it down.

Just when they started to relax, the big green human-piloted mecha arrived, and it seemed to have it in for Scott, always going for him when the group scattered. Alex took the opportunity provided by that relentless pursuit to break away, and get the Hovertank. When he returned, the others had the foe on the ropes, having taken off one of the arms. Alex tried to shoot to disable, managing to take off the other arm with a single shot from the main gun. The enemy still managed to escape through the hole.

"Scott, get the mecha down to the lowest level, and shut down the power plant. Whatever power we need down there can come from the batteries."

"I thought about just blowing the thing and us flying out of here."

"Are you kidding? This place is too important for the rebuilding of Earth after the Invid leave, for us to destroy. Besides, if Lancer found what I was asking, we'll be able to bypass the Invid without them having a clue."

"And, what about the hole?"

"There's some extra dome panels over on the west wall, for repairs. We'll just stack them on top of the hole, dab on some temporary bonding agent, and bring an avalanche down on it to cover the place. If we shut down the heat converter, the Invid won't have anything to home in on."

"You're sure of this?"

"I'm betting my life on it, aren't I? There's a tunnel leading out of here down there, some where - big enough to bring in the construction materials. We just have to find it."

A half-hour later, they were in the undercity, watching the Invid circling via a remote camera they'd planted, unable to find the city. After a few more hours, the Invid left.

"Okay, Alex; it worked. Now what?"

"We see what awaits us through that door over there. I have a feeling that some of you won't be prepared for what's there."

"You act like it will hold Leonard's head in a jar or something," Lancer chuckled.

"Well, if I'm right, you will meet a ghost inside - one with connections to Noel, Scott, Rook, and even you, Lancer. Don't say I didn't warn you."

**Chapter Six:**

"Sometimes when my mind begins to wonder,

I realize that things aren't what they seem..."

-Eve Tokimatsuri, "Saved By Science"

Lancer bypassed the security system, and the door slid open. Inside were several banks of computer terminals, arranged around a holographic display tube. Art of a multi-headed dragon, taken from a 1980s cartoon show, adorned the far wall. Geeks never changed, Alex thought.

"The mural pretty much proves my hunch correct. This the this control room of the Tiamat computer control system of the Delta Six command shelter of the UEG. It was phase two of Project Megazone."

"Megazone..." Lancer mused.

"I thought you'd recognize it, Lancer. After all, isn't that project the reason why the Black School sent you to Japan?"

Lancer slipped into to his Yellow persona, adding a bit of southern belle twang. "Sugar, you know the Black School doesn't exist. That's what my instructors there told me." Scott and the others just stared at them. "Seriously; how did you figure out my connection to the Black School?"

"You made too many comments that tied you to the GMP as much as the Tactical Air Forces, over the last few months."

"You two mind letting us in on the secret?" Scott asked.

"The Black School was the reason so many Southern Cross people were paranoid of the GMP," Alex explained. "They were blacker than black; only answerable to their leader, whom most people THINK was Rolf Emerson, Anatole Leonard, or both together. Personally, I'm betting on Rolf, but he evades the question. Essentially, they'd recruit people like Lancer here, prior to graduation, and use the pre-college cram school system to cover the project - hence it being called the 'Black School'. After they graduated from school, they went undercover - by joining the Southern Cross or other organizations."

"Wait a second - they infiltrated their own forces?"

"That was the entire point," Lancer continued. "We were meant to be the final line of defense against corruption and treason in the Southern Cross. In fact, they purposefully recruited outcasts and underachievers, then instilled a sense of duty into us during training, as our evaluations from high school would indicate we'd be the most unlikely persons that people would suspect as being secret Internal Affairs agents. We'd only send reports in if we found something that was a real threat. And we were to never reveal ourselves, just tip off our controller of the issue, unless things had gone way too far to wait for a conventional investigation and raid. While we were part of the GMP, on paper, half of the Black School agents actually infiltrated the GMP itself, because of the danger the GMP itself presented."

"So, what is this Project Megazone, and you were really sent to infiltrate it?"

"I never found out what it was, exactly. I was to try to infiltrate it through its Public Relations department, as a singer. While it was a black project, it was supposed to be revealed publicly in 2028, but the sheer amount of funds going into the project made the Black School suspicious of there being graft and other corruption. Alex appears to know more than I do."

"I found out after the Invid arrived - the project contributed to the destruction of New Tokyo. When the Invid attacked the city, it destroyed the Megazone facility underneath, and it caused what was left of New Tokyo to collapse into the hole, and the thermal tap was so badly smashed that it allowed magma to seep through. There's a volcano where the city once was - a BIG one. That ash is one of the reason the winters are so bad now. As for the project itself, the story goes like this... I had Colonel Freeman to let me access the files we'd gotten from the other Southern Cross bases when we reopened Africa Base; specifically the closed door inquiry concerning Megazone, and the coup attempt by its staff against the Japanese sector government.

"The project started in 2014, and had multiple phases. The first phase was Cavern City, in the Southlands. Yes, that's your home own, Rook. It was mainly a test of developing excavated or modified natural caverns as a form of off-world colony. In fact, the test was very successful, and the designs replicated on Mars. If you remember your childhood, Rook, you'll remember the city had an artificial sky system, based on the one of the were two more phases, but they were top secret. This facility was the second phase, and the Japanese one was the last, and most sophisticated.

"The Japanese facility was meant to be the shelter for all of the Japan Quadrant, when finished. It actually used contra-gravity and artificial gravity technology to use both the floor and roof of the city cavern for buildings, with a holographic sky system to make it seem like the surface, and to block the view of the other side, which would have caused vertigo issues. It would be near-undetectable from the surface, using the energy damper design the RDF discovered on Zentraedi stealth scouts like the _Korra'ti_ to hide its energy signature. It had its own farms, military bases, even airports with secret landing strips in the wilderness ruins. It was controlled by the computer code-named Bahamut; Zor's personal research computer that had served Dr. Lang so well on the SDF-1, and that he'd moved to New Tokyo for continued research there by his successors after he left on the SDF-3. It was hoped that they could move the majority of the populace into the underground, leaving an agrarian society on the surface that would be much less of a target for future enemy bombardment. That's where you came in, Lancer."

"No wonder it was costing so much. What happened?"

"The Robotech Masters happened."

"Wait a minute - that was in 2027; the Masters didn't show up for another eighteen months."

"Officially, yes. But the Masters had very good active stealth equipment, as you should remember. They sent one of their fleet escorts ahead, that arrived in 2027. They decided to capture an interplanetary shuttle between Earth and Mars, in order to gain intelligence on Earth's military - and hit the jackpot. The project staff of Megazone had gone on a technology tour at Gallant Arms - a colony set up using the Cavern City pattern, ironically. They were on the way back when they were captured, in the sensor gap between Earth and Mars orbit. When the Tyrolean agents realized the importance of their prisoners, they sent out a message indicating that the shuttle had propulsion difficulties, and would be late getting to Earth. They cloned the prisoners, creating agents with the prisoners' memories, then sent the agents to Earth to commit sabotage, then killed the actual prisoners."

"Do you know how crazy that sounds?"

"Yeah - the UEG members on the board of inquiry refused to believe it. Leonard and Emerson did, though, because their source for the story was Darryl Embrey, the highest-ranking survivor of the UEG government from Japan. The rest were all killed by the cloned agents. He found out because Bahamut contacted one of the mecha test pilots when the AI realized the nature of the intruders - it was Zor's computer, after all - who got the evidence to a civilian friend of Embrey's daughter. By that time, though, the civilian, aided by the AI, was fighting a war of survival against the alien spies, who had already succeeded with their coup. They were trying to instigate a war with the Neo-Soviats, that would have left Earth open for the Masters' attempt to take back the Matrix. Embrey was the last loose end that could stop it, and it was only the civilian in the mecha bike prototype that saved him - but in the process, most of the spies died, and the rest suicided when their leader died."

"So, how does this place tie in?"

"While the Southern Cross high command believed the threat, the UEG did not. The Neo-Soviets definitely didn't, and that's one of the reasons they didn't come to the defense of Earth initially, as they thought it was another ruse. By the time the threat was obvious, it wasn't their problem, so they decided to wait out the war, realizing that they would be dominant after the war, regardless of which side won. The Tiamat computer here is an Earth-built duplicate of Bahamut, Zor's computer. The spies had done a data dump from Zor's computer, before taking it out, and a lot of important data was exposed to the enemy. All the new mecha projects on the computer were canceled by the Southern Cross for security concerns, though the Hurguns like the one we saw upstairs were kept in service in Japan, since they were already made. A fully self-contained transformable bike, a couple of space fighters, and a transforming helicopter-like mecha much less complex than the AJAX were the main casualties, and all had been ready for production in '27 had the Megazone staff not been compromised. It set the Southern Cross, already playing catchup from the unexpected loss of so many mecha to the SDF-3's last minute reinforcements, back so far that we were still using Logans and Sylphs for space duty. Had the main combat bike gone into service, we would have had ten times the mecha forces, with weapons that would have made defending Monument's civilians a lot easier.

"As for this facility, they were ordered to keep it provisioned for the UEG's use; but they refused to let the government move in, as it was probably compromised. Robotech Research modified a bunch of smaller bots with the Golem's AI, and put them in charge of maintaining the city, and rotating the food stores, but no one was told of this city's location, as they feared the idiots in the UEG government would insist on moving into it despite the danger - and leave everyone else outside, which would have been a major morale killer. As it was, they ordered New Denver to evacuate here, but never told them where "here" was - Leonard took the location to the grave, then the evacuation route was hit by the Masters' suicide infantry We found the few that made it to safety milling around the entrance to the old NORAD complex, with no way to get in. We looked for a day, for the tunnel from there to here, but never found it, and those people left with us, because we had food. We can use that tunnel to get out of the mountains."

"How do we find the tunnel? We could be down here weeks in these tunnels."

"Simple, Scott - we ask where it is. I'm pretty sure she'll tell you." Alex flipped the switch that had kept the sentient computer in hibernation since 2027. "I think though, that she will be a bit pissed at being left asleep so long, where she couldn't repair the damage upstairs - that backup system they left running wasn't designed for it. By the way, you do remember the name the SDF-1 computer called itself in your uncle's labs, don't you?"

"Yes... her name is Eve..." Scott said, his voice trailing off as all the screens lit up with the EVE command screen. Lancer got a really bug-eyed look.

"Yeah, Lancer," Alex commented. "I recognized that song 'Underground' when you put it on the recording back in Reno. That was the big clincher about your other job, not the other comments. You never knew you were doing a duet with a computer, did you?"

"Authorized user voice recognized," a familiar-sounding voice sounded. "Scott Bernard. Junior assistant to Doctor Lang. How may I be of service?" The holo-display lit up, Eve materializing in the tube, looking as real as anyone else in the room.

"That's definitely the Eve I remember from Japan," Lancer observed, still taken a bit aback. "And to think no one questioned her reality, there. The excuse I remember was that she'd developed an immune disorder, and had to do her show in a different studio than her audience."

"Eve, grant user access to the persons in this room. If you have access to Southern Cross personnel files from the backup computer, some of the persons will have files there."

"Checking... Personnel identified. Lieutenant Lance Belmont, GMP Silent Service; Lieutenant Alexander Tyler, Tactical Armored Corps; Corporal Noel Freeman, Tactical Armored Corps; Technical Sergeant James Cooper, Brasilia Cities Defense Unit. Do I correctly assume that the Southern Cross has fallen? There have been no updates to the system since 2030, and maintenance of the facility is at a critical urgency level."

"You are correct - the Southern Cross and the Tyroleans both fell in 2030, the latter at the hands of a clone they made of your creator. Shortly afterward, the Invid invaded Earth, devastating what forces survived. In the last year, the REF, operating out of Tyrol, has been attempting to liberate Earth."

"Zor had hoped that the Invid would attempt to talk first, or someone talk to them. What happened?"

"The Regent happened," Noel commented, having enjoyed just listening to this point - now things were getting serious. "The Regent was occupying Tyrol at the time the SDF-3 arrived, and immediately attacked the SDF-3, thinking it was Zor's ship. By that time, the Regent and Regis had parted ways over the prosecution of the war, and a series of conflicts between the Regent's Invid and the REF resulted in the death of the Regent and most of his Invid. The Regis then came here looking for vengeance, as well as the flower of life." (It was oversimplifying it a bit, but they would have time to give the whole story later.)

"And, what happened to the clone you mentioned?"

"He is at Africa Base, trying to figure out a way to talk to the Regis without getting tortured and experimented on, like what happened to the clone Cabell created of Zor. That clone fell into Invid hands temporarily, and the Regis did awful things to him, to get the information of where to start looking for Earth."

"Are you sure there's no chance of dialogue?"

"Definite," Scott replied, sternly.

"Did something happen to you, Scott?" Eve asked.

"His entire unit, including his fiancee, were killed by the Invid when they returned to Earth" Noel explained. "In fact, most of the REF that's attempted to return have been killed before they could orbit, let alone attempt to land."

"Oh, no..." The hologram appeared to be genuinely moved by this.

"We need access to Protoculture supplies, military rations, and the armory. Can you provide us with the map to those? We also need a map to the exit tunnel. We... errr.. .sorta came in through a hole in the roof."

"The maps will print in the corner. May I suggest you spend a few days here? My sensors show most of you are exhibiting high fatigue levels and low core body temperature. Also, the civilian in the back has really skewed vitals; you need to let her get at least a couple days bed rest. I also suggest that you use the security quarters down here - my repair robots will make the city chamber too noisy, plus most of the power is shut off there now."

"Just don't tip off the Invid with the work."

"I'll won't be making permanent dome repairs after the spring thaw - it would be too difficult to attempt in the current season. The whole purpose of this facility is stealth - I won't risk that, regardless of the enemy."

They spent a week recuperating in a semblance of civilization, before moving out to Cheyenne Mountain (itself a two hour drive through a tunnel). Once there, they spent another two days in the former Zentraedi community there, making sure that there was no Invid traffic. From there, they headed southeast, spending the holidays in a post-Zentraedi resort that had sprung up to replace the original town of Hot Springs, Arkansas. While there, Lancer and Noel spent time reworking some of the 20th century songs with new lyrics. After setting off fireworks for Annie's birthday (which confused the heck out of the Invid that they'd lured into a trap that night), they returned to the road, heading south towards the Gulf of Mexico, to try to avoid the desert the deep south had become between the Cumberland Plateau and the swamps of the coast. They only had about three months to bypass Reflex Point, to reach the New Jersey area via travel along the Gulf & Atlantic coasts, before turning west to meet the REF advance forces that were to land in western Pennsylvania at the end of March.

**Chapter Seven:**

"The Zentraedi Rain of Death made no distinction between civilian and military targets. Because of the poor state of the Zentraedi fleet, destruction fell unevenly and indiscriminately. The only real regulator on what did and didn't survive was that the Grand Cannon worked, and most of North America, Japan, Korea, Manchuria and the Russian Pacific coast only were struck once by orbital bombardment. Most of the rest of the civilized world was struck three times, before Dolza redirected the rest of the fleet against Breetai, the SDF-1 and the Grand Cannon, the latter eventually destroying itself from overuse, in defending from those attacks.

"For a community to survive the Zentraedi, it took a combination of luck and location. A number of high-value military targets were clustered in one location in Nevada, and were destroyed. Yet, Las Vegas and Reno were not targeted by the initial attacks, and the Grand Cannon made sure that there were no follow-up attacks. While the reason may never be known, Exedore theorized in the post-battle analysis that the commander of that sub-fleet could not believe that the gaudily-lit cities were real, and thought them to be decoys trying to distract attention from Nellis, Edwards, Los Alamos, and other high-priority targets in the southwest. After Khyron's destruction of New Macross, Las Vegas would become a combat training and testing center, Reno a 'mothballed' evacuation center waiting to be reopened if another city had to be permanently evacuated due to warfare or natural catastrophe.

"Several cities in the Ohio Valley survived relatively unscathed from one of those statistical disasters that one will get with a fleet so large. The flagship in charge of that section of Dolza's fleet had a catastrophic failure of the capacitors for its main weapon, exploding moments before the ships in its command were to fire. The blast damaged and displaced all the nearby ships, actually destroying several of the smaller ships . As a result, Detroit and Knoxville were dealt only glancing blows, Cincinnati was spared completely, and the ships that were firing on the St. Louis area was knocked out of position to the west, sparing Granite City and the other Illinois suburbs from direct hits (though the weapons meant for them hit St. Louis proper, and the western suburbs getting hit with the heaviest fire). The combination of surviving high tech facilities (Cincinnati's GE aircraft engine plant, the hydroelectric & nuclear power plants of the Tennessee Valley, that survived the destruction of Oak Ridge) and revitalized Rust Belt facilities would prove vital in the following two decades, before being severely damaged from the diversionary attacks in the last week of ' War, then being blasted to oblivion by the Invid during their construction of Reflex Point.

"The survival of Manhattan is also probably the result of a power failure, though the fact that the other boroughs and neighboring states were scoured by the attack indicates it wasn't as catastrophic as the one on the ship targeting Cincinnati. Mexico City was similarly "spared", but the massive earthquake triggered by the gravitational upheaval of Dolza's ship would have made vaporization a mercy by compassion, since there was no one to come to their aid, as millions lay trapped, or diseased and starving in the ruins left by the 9.0 quake. 99% were dead, but the RDF helped the survivors rebuild in 2012. Most likely other areas worldwide had similar catastrophes, but few would survive to tell the tale.

"These were the 'lucky' cities. Most other urban survivors only did so because the evacuation plans for major cities were implemented immediately, and this allowed several times as many survivors as would have otherwise occurred. But, what would those spared by the attack have to endure? The next decade made many think those that died that first night were the lucky ones."

-Harold Carr, The Great American Desert: Survival in the decade after Dolza (Introduction)

**From the Journals of Alex Tyler:**

_January 23:_ "I remember reading stories about pre-Dolza Louisiana as a child; swamps as far as the eye could see; alligators, Cajuns, moss-covered cypress trees and voodoo. But that was the Louisiana Before. Before Dolza. Before the sea levels dropped several meters from the climate changes brought on by the Rain of Death, draining the bayous. Before the lack of maintenance of the Old River Control Project allowed the Old Man River to finally trump the works of man, and go down the Atchafalaya river channel like it had been trying to shift to for the last century.

"Now, it was hardly different from anywhere else. There were trees along the New Mississippi, but few things growing elsewhere. The formerly gentle hills of northern Louisiana now resemble the buttes of the western desert that we'd passed through last fall, battered by over two decades of dust storms that had lain waste to the American South, from the combined destruction of Dolza and the climate shift that gave the region worse drought conditions than the "Dust Bowl" of a century ago.

"We are camped on the banks of the Old Mississippi, a sluggish shadow of its former self, across from the small post-Zentraedi town that calls itself Baton Rouge. Whether this is just nostalgia, or we are near the ruins of the old city, I don't know. There is, however, a Mars Division emblem burned into the city limits sign, so Scott's in town as I write, trying to find out who's there."

_January 23 (Evening):_ "There are six Mars Division survivors in town, out of seventeen that had originally set up operations here. The other eleven are dead, killed not by the Invid, but by a rogue REF trooper named Dusty Ayres. The six still left had all heard of Scott, especially Commander Burdette, the senior survivor of the group. Burdette also knows Noel's family, at least professionally, given the small number of officers in the REF when it left. Noel, Lancer and I are going into town to perform tonight, to brighten up the town's currently somber and fearful mood, but I'm not sure how much that'll help. Something bugs me about Commander Burdette, though. I can't pin it down, but he reminds me of the bad old days, somehow. I'm not going to say anything, just yet, but I'm sure he's hiding something; something big."

The impromptu concert was interrupted by two of the soldiers bursting into the saloon, claiming to have a picture of Dusty Ayres. They said they had just developed it from a roll of film that was in an old camera belonging to one of the three men that Ayres had killed earlier in the week.

"So, this is Dusty Ayres," Scott mused.

"Doesn't look so tough to me," Alex added. Something was out of place with the picture, but he couldn't quite put it together. A few minutes later, he noticed a tattoo on Burdette's arm, as they were all leaning on a table, going through papers and making plans. That mark sent off enough warning bells to finally register.

"Noel, I need some fresh air. Care to step outside with me for a bit?"

"Sure, handsome. About time you remembered you were married."

They went out the front door, onto the covered boardwalk. He put his head over her shoulder, as to be intimate, then whispered into her ear.

"Something's been driving me buggy about that commander ever since we met him. While I'm sure that's his rank, the rest of his story isn't adding up."

"I've been getting the weirdest vibe off of him too - I hope what you're getting is your own, and not me subconsciously projecting."

"I'm pretty sure its my own alarm bells, not yours. Did you see that tattoo on his arm?"

"Yeah, it looks like an old squadron insignia. Lots of people get them."

"Yeah, but it's not an RDF or REF insignia - looks like an old US Navy one. He's too young to have been in that force, and he claims to have been a troop commander, not a fighter pilot, for the arrival here. Go back to the tank and get that aviation history book from my gear. I have a really bad feeling about this."

Noel met him back outside, after he went back in for a minute, and got another quick look at the tattoo without being too obvious about it.

"Okay, turn to the section on squadrons from the pre-Global-War era. Look for a diamond, with a robed horseman, waving a sword."

"Found it... VF-142 - Alex, you aren't gonna like this..."

"Why?"

"VF-142 was one of the squadrons that were ancestral to those of the SDF-1. VF-84 was ancestral to Skull, you know..."

"'Jolly Rogers', yes. So?"

"VF-142's nickname was 'Ghostriders'."

"Oh, shit. No wonder he wasn't trusted with a Veritech squadron. He was one of Edwards' goons that managed to escape court-martial, somehow." Alex leaned against the building.

"Hold that pose, Alex."

"Why?"

Noel took a couple steps back, and made like she was taking a picture with an invisible camera.

"I knew there was something wrong with that picture! It was taken here in town, and there's no way that Ayres could have been here with hostile intent when that photo was taken, from his stance, and the angle it was taken. Who knows how old that photo really is. They've been feeding us a load of crap when they tell us they don't know much about him - he'd never have stuck that pose for a stranger to take a photo of him, especially not at this range. What do you want to do about it?"

"Let's play along for a while, and hope we get a chance to get Scott and the others away from Burdette long enough tomorrow to tell them what we found. Right now, though, we've got to go back to camp and get the others here, before we try something. If we bring it up now, we're still outnumbered by Burdette's men. When we go out tomorrow, we'll have to find some way to take Ayres alive, and confront him and Burdette to find out what's really going on."

That night, Noel noticed what the others didn't - Rook's reaction to Dusty's picture. Eventually, she was able to get Rook alone, and convinced Rook to tell her side of the story, after promising she wouldn't tell the others until she had to - besides, if what Dusty had told Rook was true, it wouldn't have been safe for them to tell the others, in the presence of the locals.

The next morning, they had gone out looking for Ayres, but had been found by the Invid instead. However, the Invid retreated when Ayres arrived. He took out two of the three local Cyclones immediately, as Scott, Lancer, and the survivors of the town's forces maneuvered, trying to get Ayres to stray into the fire from Lunk's machinegun. However, this only resulted in Lunk's truck being taken out (Lunk himself only surviving because he was manning the gun, instead of driving, and was thrown clear), and the remaining former REF from town being killed. Scott managed to pound Ayre's motorcycle, a Cyclone modified to the point of non-transformability with a missile sidecar, into flaming debris - but Ayres walked out of the explosion, seemingly unhurt. As Rand and Rook, in their Alphas, took out the Invid (who seemed to be more intent on watching the human vs. human battle than fighting), the others saw why Ayres had survived - he was some sort of cyborg, and the non-human parts practically screamed "Invid" in their point of origin.

Ayres advanced on the group, laying out Lancer with a single punch, and nearly doing the same to Scott, despite Scott being in Battle Armor mode. He then pointed his blaster at Scott's chest. "Stay there; don't get up."

Fearing the possibilities, especially if Scott tried to play hero, Noel dropped her Cyclone and weapon, and advanced on Ayres, hands open.

"Dusty, it's over," Noel said calmly. "You've got your revenge."

"Who are you, lady, to tell me what to do?"

"Not your enemy. Neither are these people. They only know what Burdette told them. How about telling them your side? If you don't, then how are you any different than Burdette?"

By this time, Rook had landed her Alpha, and approached as well. "Dusty, let them go. You told me that you just wanted revenge; that you weren't after the rest of us."

"They tried to kill me."

"Only because they didn't know the truth," Noel said, removing her helmet to make herself more vulnerable, to reduce the tension that was still at the point of breaking badly, on a wrong move. "It's over; those people who betrayed you are all dead. There's no need to fight anymore."

"Is it? Do you think flyboy here will stand for my walking away unpunished for my 'crimes'?"

"What do you think would happen?" Rook asked. "They were told you were a murderer, not someone seeking vengeance for treachery. If you kill them, you will be a murderer. If you must kill them, start with me, because these people mean more to me than life itself."

"Rook... I couldn't do that; I just couldn't. Maybe, if I'd had friends like you, none of this would have happened. I see that now."

"Look out!" Alex yelled, seeing one of the fallen Invid stagger back to its feet - one of the elite command units.

"It's too hurt to be a threat, to us," Dusty said, but he was wrong, as somehow, the Invid managed to start powering up its guns. "No!"

Dusty shoved Rook and Noel back, then turned and started firing point blank at the Invid's vulnerable sensor area. As it blew up, it still managed to get off its final, deadly, attack. When the dust cleared from the explosion and the Invid's fire, all that remained of Dusty was his hat, which had slipped off his head as he charged.

They waited to see if more Invid would show, but none came. That evening, they returned to the town, to find the locals seemingly more relieved that their "defenders" were dead, than for the elimination of Ayers. They sat around a table in the saloon, and talked it over.

"Scott, we didn't know how to tell you safely, before the battle, but there were signs that something was wrong, even as early as last night."

"How's that?"

"Here's what I've been able to piece together from Dusty's story to Rook, along with what some of the locals have told me since we came back. Dusty really was the victim. It started back when your mission was put together at Tyrol."

"Okay, start there."

"Burdette was a former Ghost Rider, that decided to bail on Edwards, rather than run to Optera. Mainly, it was because he thought running to some god-forsaken alien planet was insane, not from any real loyalty to the REF. He and some of the other troops that had been on the wrong side of things back then were put into a special unit, to serve as infantry, not pilots of full mecha, and it pissed him off. They ended up at Point K, and Burdette and about fifty others were in the process of deserting when the Invid hit the place and destroyed it. Ayres was one of the few survivors that escaped the carnage, and didn't find out until much later that the reason the group he had joined back up with had survived was they'd left vamp before the attack. In fact, they'd noticed the Invid about to attack, but did not give a warning, expecting the attack to cover their escape - they never dreamed that it was in such force that it would actually DESTROY Point K. A couple of the deserters actually killed themselves in remorse over what happened, afterward, having not been able to live with the fact that they'd killed six thousand people by their inaction - and Burdette personally shot another, that had tried to give a warning of the Invid threat, during the departure."

"The bastard! Even Wolfe had better reasons for his actions."

"They managed to make it here, after a few months that cost them over half their force. They found a town seeking protection from the Invid, and Burdette decided to set himself up as the de facto ruler. This quickly soured relations with the locals. Ayres was always a dissenting voice in their plans, and it drove the other seventeen nuts. Finally, they hit on a solution. The Invid were looking for test subjects in the area, so they arranged to have Dusty captured, in exchange for some Protoculture and a pact of non-aggression with the Invid. What they hadn't counted on was the nature of the experiments, and that Dusty would survive the experience."

"It's even worse than I thought;" Scott said, banging his fist on the table. "And, to think we were helping them!"

"You had no way of knowing;" Alex replied. "In a way, Dusty was the last victim of Edwards' tyranny. But, then, we are all victims, in a way, of this senseless war. If the Regis had just tried to talk to us before landing her invasion in such a brutal way, and we could have gotten Zor Prime to talk to her safely, maybe none of this would have been necessary. Instead, the Invid killed without mercy on landing, and the stupid Mexican dictator escalated the war before we could deliver a counter-attack that could have pushed her into peace talks - or at least, knocked out the ability for the Invid to blast later arrivals out of orbit before landing. At least Dusty is free of the war now, wherever he is."

He awoke in a dark room, a cool rag on his forehead easing the burns from a too-close plasma burst. He couldn't tell how much time had passed, or where he was. He did know, though, that he shouldn't be here; there's no way he could have survived, even with his augmentation. He could also tell that there was someone in the room with him, sitting at his bedside.

"Where am I?"

"That's a bit of a long story. Your arrival was quite the surprise."

"Arrival?"

"I think little sister is up to her old tricks again, but I don't think it was something she consciously did; after all, she doesn't feel comfortable teleporting herself right now. More likely, she just didn't want you to die, and her subconscious acted on it. You showed up five days ago, falling in a ball of fire onto the floor of the Africa Base CIC from about eye level. Luckily, I was there to help save you."

"Africa, how did I get to Africa?"

"Think back to before you left Tyrol - what was the big story about what happened to the Edwards clone, on Optera?"

"Officially, or unofficially?"

"Both."

"Unofficially, that some member of Skull was a mutant, and used her mind powers to fry Edwards when he wouldn't release the Hunters. Of course that sounds silly."

"Well, it's true - and I'm the mutant in question. Noel is a clone I made almost 20 years ago, to cover that I'd become an adult practically overnight. She has powers similar to mine. She used those powers to send you here, and while you were recuperating and having those Invid bionics studied by our lab guys, I was debriefing you with telepathic probes. You're an interesting man, Sergeant Ayres. If we make through this war, you'll probably be remembered as the 'Count of Monte Cristo' of the Robotech Wars. Of course, officially, you'll be dead; some people won't take your killing seventeen soldiers for revenge lightly, even if they deserved a firing squad for what they did to you and to Point Kilo."

"And, unofficially?"

"Well, the first step is to get rid of those bionics. I'm pretty good with a protoculture chamber. I can move myself and a few hundred kilos from point to point at stellar distances, teleporting, so as soon as you feel up to it, I'm going to take you to one of our Zentraedi ships in Mars orbit, clone you a whole body, and we'll transfer your mind into it. It's like Zentraedi resizing, but with a full cellular rebuild like the cloning process. One of the processes the chamber can do, from its own programming, but it was locked out of the commands that Zentraedi could order - otherwise Breetai would haven't needed that cybernetic eye plate installed. After that, you get a whole new identity, and get incorporated into the crew of the ship. What you do after the war's over is your decision."

"Lead the way, then."

Dusty staggered to his feet, and Karen took his arm. In a small flash of light and a breeze, she took him to begin his new life. To herself, she thought, "If only the road to my new life had been so easy; and I've still got months to go before I can try to regain what I lost all those years ago."

**Part Sixteen Appendix: The Black School**

_...But who will watch the watchmen? - Juvenal (Roman satirist, late 1st Century CE) _

One thing that seemed to be common in the Southern Cross was a bit of paranoia concerning the GMP. Of course, this paranoia had a bit of basis in fact (but, then, is it really paranoia if someone really is out to get you?). The seed of this mistrust was a very real, beyond top secret, branch of the GMP that very few below the rank of Colonel (at least outside the branch) were cleared for knowledge of.

It was known only as shadowy rumors. None outside the organization knows its real name - or even if it HAS a name (officially, it is referred to as the GMP Silent Service, in what few records exist, all of them in computers so tightly controlled not even the UEG Parliament nor anyone under the rank of Brigadier can access the files). Truthfully, even 75% of its members are unaware of the name, other than it once had ties to the UEG Bureau Six agency. But, what the organization is usually referred to as is "The Black School", one of the slang terms for the first step in becoming a member of the force.

The Black School existed in the years 2019 to 2029, after which the drain on manpower of the war with the Robotech Masters made it impossible to gain new recruits before the draft snatched them up.

Typically, it would silently scout elementary schools, looking for students with the proper intelligence and mindset for their operations, but avoided the limelight. These candidates would be followed into high school, and some would be dropped from the list, while additional ones would be added. If given a choice of a star athlete, the class valedictorian, or a student that tested far better than their GPA would indicate, the third would be the one most likely to be approached - after all, discipline could be instilled.

Recruits would be invited to a preparatory camp at any number of real, local, schools, supposedly geared toward improving school and career skills prior to college or the military. On arrival, they would find themselves alone, except for a masked recruiter - the excuse given is that of a psychological exam for the real course (which to an extent, it was). Reactions would be tested, and the potential recruit would be given a full physical. On passing these, the true nature of the School was outlined, and the person given the choice of entering training, or being drugged to forget most of the events of the last day, and being inserted into a real prep class, never to be approached again (the fate of those that flunked the evaluations). About 40% of the recruits passed this step, and entered The Black School.

Over the summer, they would share instructors, but were instructed individually - none of the students ever met a fellow student, while in training. Classes instilled the tightest self-discipline as possible into the trainees, while teaching them the fieldcraft skills needed for a deep undercover agent. In the end, they would graduate from the "prep program" with all the real students for the course, all of which were ALSO worked on in a one-on-one basis, so none of them would really know who was at the real school and who was at The Black School. As about 60% of the post-Dolza schools ended at age 16, compressing most of pre-Dolza grades 8-12 into 3 years, at least 10% of the students going for college or military training (beyond that of being a simple grunt) would take such classes, making it so much easier to pull the substitution, as all the Black School instructor were accredited tutors, and 75% of their students were NORMAL prep trainees, not Black School.

That was the first step in being a member of the organization. The next step is what caused the paranoia, once the initial training was done. Because, after the "prep class", the next step for each of the Black School alumni was to JOIN THE SOUTHERN CROSS. They would then go into the branch that was determined to be best for them (or a planned future need), becoming fully trained (or nearly so) in that specialty. From that point on, these moles WITHIN THE ASC would be completely normal persons within their chosen public profession, but had been encouraged to avoid promotion to a rank higher than small unit command positions.

The Black School program existed for one purpose - to keep the greater RDF (the pre-SDF-3 RDF, the post-SDF-3 RDF that morphed into the ASC under Leonard & Emerson, and to a much lesser extent, the REF) secure from enemies internal and external. While nominally part of the GMP, close to 10% of their agents had actually INFILTRATED the GMP, to be an effective second line of defense from corruption.

If corruption or treason were found, most of the time, the agent was to remain in cover, and leak the information to the Colonel or Brigadier in charge of the GMP in their sector, through a secure means that was only revealed to those high-ranking officers outside the program by their predecessors or contemporaries. If possible, the agent would be rounded up in the investigation (along with other innocents), and most of the innocents transferred to other units "as a precaution", in order to relocate the agent to a presumably safe unit for a cooldown period, before being transferred once again after the investigation to another unit, to wait and watch.

On very rare occasions, the agent had to blow their cover, sometimes leading to the presence of an infiltrating group within the ASC being passed around as rumor. The few times that anyone ever came forth from it, they usually disappeared once more, after the reason they revealed themselves was taken care of. Sometimes, they were given a new identity and transferred to normal GMP service - other times they were shipped off as a colonist off-planet in a new identity. And, in at least one case, the person was considered a liability, and either committed suicide or was executed (the rumors vary) to protect the secrets of the Southern Cross.

The incidents in 2027, involving the Japanese Sector, are probably the most famous events tied to The Black School. It started off with Project Megazone being a black project itself, and the disappearance of so much funding and personnel (especially research personnel) into it led to the Black School trying to infiltrate over a dozen people into it. Only two made it in, and only one made it in so far as to see the extent of the project, as a test pilot - had the Masters not interfered, that would have been the end of it.

However, the leadership of the project had gone to Mars to meet with the managers of Gallant Arms, and ended up being captured by an advance scout ship for the Robotech Masters. On discovering the value of their prisoners, and that their project used the computer that once was Zor's personal research assistant aboard the SDF-1, the Masters chose to clone the prisoners, creating fully loyal spies (that could reasonably retain and understand the culture of their originals) to infiltrate Earth, steal the computer's information, then attempt to cause a world war that would render Earth distracted and relatively defenseless while the Masters swooped in, recovered the Matrix, then left to rebuild their empire.

The plan almost worked; however, the suspicious behavior of the hundred or so project personnel from the Mars trip started acting funny tipped off the test pilot, after their flight back to Earth had been a week late from an "in-flight malfunction that the chip's crew repaired", and the spacecraft crew were mysteriously reassigned to the project on return with no known duties (in reality, more clones with less careful reprogramming, to act as enforcers and guards for the main agents). Unable to get to his normal means of contact, and watching a number of his colleagues die in a "training accident" (ambushed coming in from the field), he called a friend, hoping he could have the friend hand-deliver the message to higher up. He met the friend, only to be killed by his pursuers, and the friend getting away with the prototype, running for his life on a mecha with a direct link into the SDF-1's old computer.

Thus began what was known as the Andrews Incident, which culminated with the civilian (with the help of the SDF-1's AI) killing the lead Tyrolean simulagent, and the others either died in attempts to stop the civilian from contacting Communications Minister Embrey (then, Embrey's attempt to alert Emerson and Leonard), or the mop-up, where as loyal clones, the simulagents fought to the death, suiciding if left no other choice. Embrey's version of the events (alien clones) seemed outlandish, and was pretty much ignored, except for one thing - as a precaution, all the new mecha designs whose prototypes were used in the coup were dropped from the production schedule, and the completed phase two structure from the Megazone project in North America (New Tokyo's was Phase Three), already designated as the war relocation center for the civilian government (and as such was considered even blacker than New Tokyo's), was removed from that role, temporarily, in the off chance that there was something to Embrey's story. When the Masters arrived 18 months later, choosing to attack on a date that was obviously chosen for the low state of readiness the military and government would be on, from the graduation and holidays, that removal became permanent, as Embrey's claims were proven true (and Emerson & Leonard's erring on the side of caution concerning the discarded mecha designs and disuse of the secret base turned out to be a cannily accurate decision). While not used, new supplies continued to be sent to that facility, up to the month before the final battle that destroyed Monument.

It would be ironic that the other agent that had succeeded in infiltrating Project Megazone, albeit as part of the stillborn PR campaign that was to accompany its revelation to the public, would later blunder into that North American facility, less than six months before Reflex Point. A young pilot in the Tactical Space Corps (and Black School graduate), Lance R. Belmont, was transferred from Kennedy Field (the reclaimed JFK airport, turned into a ASC Space forces facility) to Tokyo by his controllers, with the order to put his (already known) penchant for trying out for musicals when off-duty in Manhattan to use, doing the same in Tokyo, with the goal of getting noticed by the Megazone PR department, and getting recruited for it, from already being in uniform (and therefore, sworn to secrecy). It actually worked better than planned, but the revelation to Belmont of just what he'd been singing about was originally scheduled to occur the week after the return - and the whole PR campaign was canceled by the enemy agents before it could happen. He tried finding out more information, but was stymied by the coup's launch, as the enemy attempted to foment war with the EBSIS and split the UEG. He was assigned back to the city air defense forces of Manhattan, considered potentially tainted by the Megazone project, never discovering its true facilities under New Tokyo, and not getting returned to pilot status until after the Masters War ended (and not even getting a variable mecha to use when the Invid arrived). It is unknown if he ever found out the full story of Project Megazone, or recognized the Delta-Six Emergency command facility as part of it, prior to the end of the Invid War (at least, in the mainstream universe - The truth gets revealed to him by an unexpected combination of sources in the Freeman Chronicles universe).


	20. Book Five, Part Seventeen

**Part Seventeen: Event Horizon**

**Chapter One:**

"Life is a series of collisions with the future; it is not a sum of what we have been, but what we yearn to be." - Jose Ortega y Gassett

. "Jeez, the water's cold!" Alex gasped, breaking the surface after jumping into the small lake.

"It isn't that bad;" Noel replied. "It's warmer than that pond back in the Andes."

"It can't be by much. We can't stay in too long, unless we want to risk hypothermia."

"We needed the bath - we haven't seen indoor plumbing since Annie's birthday party, and it's not like the people in Baton Rouge were bending over backwards to get us to stay after Burdette's bunch was taken care of." That was almost a month ago, and those people, while happy to be free of the tyrannical former Ghost and his goons, were too afraid of a repeat to allow the group to do more than spend the night and top off their supplies for the trip. Once they'd left, they'd spent three weeks crossing the deep south, now a desert that, while it did get decent rain this time of year, had become very rough terrain from the lack of plant growth. When the rain came, it was almost always in the form of heavy thunderstorms, and they'd had either straight-line winds or a tornado flip over their parked Veritechs once, while they hunkered in an old storm shelter with the mummified corpses of those had died in that shelter during Dolza's attack (from the thermal pulse of a near miss). This abandoned farm pond in the South Carolina Piedmont was the first consistently green area they'd come across in days, and the first one of this leg of the trip to have enough water for more than sponge bathing.

"Come here and let me scrub your back; that dust got everywhere."

"I think you're getting a little too far around from the back, there..."

"I can't help myself."

"Would you two hurry up in there?" Rook yelled from the campsite on the other side of the stand of trees that had grown up in the last 25 years since the farm was leveled.

"All right, all right," Alex yelled back. "Can't a married couple have a little fun anymore?"

"Not when they've got everyone else waiting for their turn," Scott interjected. "I want to get back on the road before dark."

"Okay, we'll finish this later," Alex whispered into Noel's ear, nibbling her neck. "Wash your hair again while I finish up."

Ten minutes later, they were in dry clothing, discussing the mission ahead with Scott, Lancer, Rand and Lunk, while Rook, Marlene and Annie took their turn bathing.

"One of the things we got from Burdette's notes back in Baton Rouge is that there's a major storage facility in Manhattan that the Invid maintain for their human flunkies. The flower of life didn't take root in the Eastern Hemisphere as well as it did here, so they have to send out a shipment out once a month. Thanks to the actions of Vulcan Division and the navy, the amount the overseas traitors have needed has been going down rapidly, so there's a large backlog in their fuel dump there. If we can get in there, we'll have more than enough for the rest of the trip."

"If we come across more Protoculture, could we bypass it?" Lunk asked.

"Not really;" Scott replied. "Our information from the freedom fighter network indicates that the defenses for Reflex Point are weakest on the east side, north of the Ohio. It's also one of the most-recovered areas of the north, so there's more cover to hide behind. It's believed that the Invid consider it in their perimeter because it has regular overflights from the movement to and from Manhattan, but it's not got the in-place defenses that the rest of the approaches do, until you get into Ohio."

"So, we're going to waltz up to the Invid warehouse, steal their Protoculture, and fly TOWARD their home base while they're chasing us;" Rand sneered. "That sounds like a brilliant plan."

"Can you think of something better, Rand?" Scott asked, rhetorically. "I didn't think so."

Suddenly, the roar of aircraft turbines became apparent, coming from the softeast.

"What the hell?" Lunk asked, as two heavily modified Valkyries morphed to Guardian mode in the process of coming to a quick stop, almost over their camp, then settled to the ground.

"John, what the hell are you two doing? Trying to tell every Invid on the east coast where we are?"

"You know these idiots?" Lancer asked, as the pilots climbed out of their mecha.

"Yeah, ever since the war with the Masters. John was one of the discipline cases that Dana and I got stuck with, and Jen was GMP; the two met during one of his arrests. They were part of our force that defied both the Masters and the High Command at the end of the war. Hell, Jen almost got herself killed trying to cushion the landing of Noel and Zor after Noel teleported them out of the Masters' ship. They retrained the same time the three of us were in Brasilia, but they were in a different section."

"And, those Veritechs?"

"Well, they started their lives as RDF VF-1s, but that was before the REF got done playing with them. They've got a variant of the Beta's pop-up launchers and a force field in that kit, to allow them to go over mach with all that gear still attached."

John walked up, and gave a mock salute. "Alex, you know these planes have shadow devices; it's not like the Invid use acoustic sensors."

"So, how did you find us, and what are you doing here?"

"Well, Karen told us where to look, and as to what we're doing here, we've been sent ahead to help organize the local resistance. The majority of our forces are down in the Antilles, but will be moving north next month. Dana and Zor are up in New Columbia for the next couple days, but are supposed to fly back down and leave us marshaling the locals for an assault up through Cumberland Gap concurrent with the landings in Florida and Georgia."

"We had been planning on heading up to Manhattan before turning west across Pennsylvania. Want us to join you, instead?"

"Truthfully, Alex, you couldn't pay me enough to have you guys with us."

"Huh?" Scott asked, having joined in, finally.

"You haven't heard, have you?"

"Heard what?"

"Well, it's hard getting any sort of useful intelligence from the Invid, but what little we've gotten is that you all are _SPECIAL_..."

"And that means?"

"The Invid seem to really like you guys, and I don't mean that in a good way. They want you all taken out, and from what we understand, their fully autonomous types are told to take as many of your group alive as possible, but really hurt any place that gives you all aid and comfort. Half the places you passed through in South America are just plain GONE, now. You folks need to stay moving, to distract the Invid from the invasion forces. Those are the orders Colonel Freeman told me to pass on to you all. Keep on going up the Atlantic Seaboard, and get the locals aware of the coming invasion. Once you get the word to the Manhattan Resistance, try to make it to Reflex Point - but do it without traveling with any group that could face the Invid's wrath from the association."

"So, we're to go it alone, all the way there?"

"That's the gist of it. I know it sounds pretty cold, but you folks would be an albatross around the neck of any group that tried to absorb you, before the final assault. On the bright side, if she has recovered enough by then, Noel's abilities are worth a company of special forces - she proved that in Monument and Africa."

"That's just wonderful. Can you at least resupply us?"

"A little bit. Send Alex and Noel up to New Columbia, and they can pick up enough cells to refuel all your Veritechs and Cyclones, and several loads of missiles for the bikes. Any Veritech missiles would literally have to be pulled from Zor's Beta, so I can't really say what he can part with."

"I guess that will have to do; besides, Noel and Dana probably will be itching to get together, even if we didn't."

"By the way, Alex; nice mecha."

"You know me; I always preferred the tanks over being a jet jockey."

"Okay; we'll stay here with Bernard and Belmont, and fill them in on what intel we have of points to the north. After all, your orders mean that you all can't risk actually going into town as a group. They seem to care less about you two than the others, though."

"And that's supposed to be a comfort?'

An hour later, Alex & Noel pulled into New Columbia in the Hovertank. A green Legios was sitting under camouflage netting at what was left of an old civil airport, next to one of the few intact hangars. A crowd was gathered around the hangar, and few gave the Hovertank a second look as it pulled in, indicating they were accustomed to the presence of human mecha. As they climbed out of the mecha, the crowd parted to let them through to the hangar interior.

"Noel!" Dana called out, walking away from the group she had been standing with. "Glad you could make it." The two met and hugged, as Alex walked on past to where Zor was in the middle of a discussion with five men that were unmistakably Tyrolean in origin.

"Friends of yours, Zor?"

"I guess you could say so, Alex. Near the end of the battle at Monument, New Detroit and Manhattan finally realized they couldn't stay on the defensive, and tried to send in a few air wings. These clones are the survivors of the force that the Masters sent to intercept. They were knocked out of the air by the Protoculture conversion, and managed to make their way to one of the surviving enclaves of Zentraedi. With the Invid on the way, they managed to get everyone to work together to get as much of the surviving military gear operable. Eventually, they joined with the local resistance here, got their Bioroids repowered, and they've been prepping for eventually taking down the collaborators that have seized New Charlotte."

"I gather this is happening soon."

"We were planning for tomorrow, actually. Want to stick around and join us?"

"Sure; it's been kinda dull the last month or s-" An air raid siren interrupted him.

"I believe the Invid have gotten wind of our plans."

"Then, let's go so them how rude it is to barge in unannounced."

Alex ran outside, and hopped into the Spartacus. Behind him, the hangar doors opened, and Zor and the others walked out in a mix of red and green Bioroids. In quick order, they jumped onto one of the hovercraft, leaving behind a spare. Alex smiled, transformed to Battloid, and followed suit. He hit the power switch, and triggered his exterior speakers.

"ALL BIOROIDS TO YOUR HOVERCRAFT!" he droned in imitation of the clone masters, then followed it up with a classic rebel yell.

"Tyler, you lunatic!" Dana yelled from the cockpit of her Alpha, as she and Noel got the Legios ready for launch. "What in the hell are you doing?"

"What does it look like? Blame your husband..." Several years earlier, Zor had lost a bet, the payoff being him teaching Alex how to use a bioroid hovercraft effectively, compared at least to the minimal use they learned in their escape from a Masters ship the year before.

"Don't remind me..." Zor replied. "At least the locals added radio gear to these Bioroids." Zor took 4 shots in as many seconds, destroying one Invid with each burst. "It would be too hard coordinating with conventional mecha, without it."

"Why do you think the Invid chose now to attack? There seems to be more than a random patrol here..."

"Someone from the opposition probably saw you roll into town in that hovercraft."

"Let's make sure we pay them a return call, after this. What do they have, other than Invid friends?"

"Two Valkyries stuck in Battloid, a Logan, about a dozen Battloids and a couple dozen Cyclones," Dana replied, as she splashed the last shock trooper. "You guys ready to pay Charlotte a visit?"

"Sure, if the locals are ready."

The counterattack was over quickly. The Invid collaborators had grossly underestimated the resources that Columbia had on hand, especially when factoring in the Legios and Hovertank. The collaborator town was really little more than a town whose "protectors" held the rest of the populace under their thumb with the threat of what their mecha (and aid from the Invid) could do. As the locals couldn't risk rising up unless all the bad guys could be taken down at once, it had been a stalemate - until the force rolled in from the south, and made quick work of the Cyclones and CDU Unicorns that responded to the attack once they realized the Invid weren't coming to help. A few of them chose to run, rather than fight - they never made it out of town, as their "subjects" finally saw their deliverance at hand, and shot down the fleeing traitors - usually from the back.

As the noises of the main battle fell silent, the people began to emerge from their homes - and immediately took out four years of frustration on the homes of the now-deceased collaborators, and those that had willingly worked with them. For Alex, it brought to mind images from school classes on the decade prior to the SDF-1's arrival, of dictators and corrupt regimes in Eastern Europe falling, and the people turning on the Communist Party functionaries and officials in an orgy of violence - especially if they managed to catch members of the secret police. Half of those nations would soon be ravaged by the Global War, when Russia's civil war spilled out into Europe and the Middle East, then dragging the rest of Asia & the Americas into the war, and when that conflict was over, came the anti-unity wars, and finally the Zentraedi. In many ways, the specter of the Invid loomed over the town now as did the Zentraedi did over Europe then; but can one argue against celebrating the now, in light of an uncertain future?

Alex went over to Noel, who was sitting on a wall, gazing at the mountains to the west.

"What's on your mind?"

"I was just thinking about how Dad and the others spent the night of the Zentraedi attacks in a house not far from here. They were a bunch of kids, stuck home alone, not knowing what would become of them, as they watched the battle overhead."

"So we're near the ancestral home, huh?"

"Well, not as close as you were to yours back in Monument. Alex, can we go there, for a visit?"

"How would we get there?"

"Dana says to use the Beta."

"Wha- oh, your telepathy. I was getting used to you not having it. Do you even know where the house was?"

"Uncle Scott had Dana & Zor load its coordinates into the Beta, in case they needed a place to hide out; the house was built into the side of a hill, and they concealed it when they left."

"Okay, I guess we can do it. Have Dana get the tank back to Columbia, and we'll meet back up with the others in the morning."

"Great; you don't know how much this means to me..."

The sun was setting as the Legios set down in what appeared to be just an overgrown field at the base of a hillside.

"This is it?" Alex asked, not sure of Noel's directions.

"The house was an underground, built into the hillside for both climate control savings as well as it being a fully functional fallout shelter. What you don't see is the small house trailer that served as the more public rooms of the house; Danielle sold it to be recycled after she found it abandoned. Lynn, Dad and the others had moved everything of value into the bunker section, and after they left, looters stole most of the rest of the surface structure."

"I didn't think shelter homes were that common back then?"

"You forget where we are. With the terrorism and the Mideast nukes going off before the SDF-1 arrived, and the escalation into global war, a lot of people were afraid that the nuclear facilities at Oak Ridge, or the TVA's fission plants, might be hit, and that would be even more nasty than a normal nuke. A lot of the people that were commuting to those facilities were making big money, so they in effect started the trend, and the trend only grew with the revelation of the SDF-1's arrival."

"So, how do we get in?"

"Dani buried the entrance with our uncle's tractor, before leaving, and it looked like there's been some mudslides over it since. But, the sensors pick the entrance out about six meters off the Alpha's nose at two o'clock. Once we get it uncovered, we'll have to hook a power transfer cable over to the doorframe, so we can use the key fob that Uncle Scott sent with Dana. If it doesn't work, then we'll have to get more creative."

"Creative? What, blowing the door?"

"Well, only a small part of it. There's a panel on the door, that was meant to be cut open by rescue workers to open the door manually from outside. Needless to say, one didn't mark the exact spot with decals or anything, but the serial number of the door tells which location to cut, and that is found on the outside. They had ten different internal designs that looked identical externally, but each with a different rescue cut location. Scott also sent the list of locations by serial prefix with the fob."

"Always thinking ahead; he's good at that."

Luckily, the key fob worked, and they made it in shortly after dark. Everything was as the family left it 23 years earlier, other than a thin layer of dust that had managed to not get swept up by the air purification system before the power was shut down to the bunker systems. Said power systems would probably take longer to restore than the time they had here, so they left the house on minimal power, supplied by conventional APU of the Beta. A couple of the rooms required use of the mecha's survival lanterns, the lights having burned out when there were no replacements, or had failed from age since then. One of those rooms was the master bedroom, that hadn't been used for anything since the morning of the attack, John Landers Sr. having died in an accident that day, trying to get back home from work as the Zentraedi rain fell.

They stayed awake for to within a couple hours of dawn, looking through old family albums, the heirloom jewelry that Lynn had considered too valuable to take (then her career made her think it was too risky to keep with her), and lots of music discs, ranging from post-war alternative on CD to 70s country & disco on vinyl. They finally went to sleep, and slept past noon, only waking when a signal was relayed by the Beta through the front door, from Dana checking up on them. After getting Dana to hang up, they quickly made love in the huge, still comfortable, bed, before dressing and packing up things on the list they were told to look for. By dusk, they were flying back over the Smokies to their old friends and new.

Of course, it would be Dana and Zor who would be flying the loaded down Beta back to deliver the goods, and in a way Noel was glad for it, In many ways, she was worried that if she went back to base, or even a ship off the coast, she's be immediately yanked from duty and given all sorts of tests to try to figure out why she had such difficulty contacting Karen and the others, after having a much easier time of it for a few weeks back in Utah, months ago. Her place was here, with Bernard and the others; everything in her, body and soul, told her so, and she wasn't going to risk it.

The night after they'd left the civilized part of the Carolinas behind, she was sitting at the campfire, in the overgrown remnants of what was once some Civil War historic site (the US one, not the Global War). She kept twisting the chain of the locket around her neck, with one finger; an old-style photo locket, probably a half-century or more old.

"What's so special about that necklace?" Rand asked, and was almost immediately stared down by Rook for daring to be so unsubtle.

"It's my grandparents' picture inside," Noel responded. She opened the locket, and passed it around. The pictures within showed a couple, in a very Spartan military setting.

"I've never seen uniforms like those before," Lunk asked. "Who were they?"

"They were pioneers," Noel replied. "Those were pictures taken at Moonbase Armstrong, back in 2004. They, and their children, were part of the first group of astronauts allowed to bring their families to settle the Moon, as both worked in the Apollo Shipyards. Dad even got to fly in one of the last shuttle missions during the war, to launch military satellites. A couple months later, the SDF-1 arrived, and the technology from it changed everything. Suddenly, the idea of bases on the moon and Mars were a matter of months, not decades, and they got in on the ground floor. Dad and the rest spent six years there, before they were evacuated back to Earth with the rest of the non-essential personnel, in the wake of the events at Toronto. When we had these pictures, it was the first images I'd ever seen of them, and I got permission to keep this locket - it was Aunt Janet's."

"They died when Dolza attacked, right?"

"Yes. Uncle Scott actually saw it happen - he'd locked the other kids in the bunker, but stayed outside, waiting for his uncle. The attack on the moon happened as the majority of the fleet was still lining up over Earth. This picture serves to remind me that there's been too many families separated; too many kids orphaned, by these stupid wars over Protoculture. We've got to resolve this conflict once and for all, before too many more lives are ruined."

**Chapter Two:**

"I'll admit it now, freely. I had found out conclusively that Marlene was an Invid, during the Battle of Manhattan, and had suspected it since at least October, after the encounter with Sera's forces in Donner Pass. But, what good would it have served to reveal it before the point where it was revealed naturally? The answer, of course, was it would have had no good purpose, and would have been to the detriment of us all. As hobbled as my powers were during most of the trip (a safety precaution Karen had slipped into my mind in our contact when I was in Utah, to make sure I didn't stand out like a glaring beacon to Invid telepathic sensors, until I was in an area where it wouldn't be as obvious), I still had enough capability to actually read Marlene enough to tell that Sera's attempts to 'reactivate' her Invid side was as much a shock to her as her being revealed was to the others two weeks later. It was vital to all of us, and when I say 'us', I mean all of humanity, that she choose between 'Marlene' & 'Ariel' of her own free will, and that she lived long enough to make that choice."

-Noel Tyler, interviewed by Maria Bartley-Rand, for the "Protocultures: Macross+60" documentary (2059)

It was the first week of March, and they had finally made their way up to the ruins of what had been the New Jersey home of several pre-Zentraedi New York sports teams. It was no surprise to hear from the locals that they had progressed up to the top of the Invid's Most Wanted list, with descriptions of them being circulated with the unusual caveat of informing the Invid, instead of a bounty on their heads. For some reason, the Invid wanted to make sure that they were captured by other humans, not killed.

The chance of that actually occurring approached zero. Almost unanimously, the locals hated the Invid, and had long ago taken out anyone working for the Invid (and a number of those who potentially might in the future). The only humans working for the Invid in Manhattan were those impressed as slaves for loading and operating ships and harbor equipment, and they liked the Invid even less than those still free. The 40 years of war (going back to the Global War in the 90s - or even 1993's terrorist attack on the WTC complex) had done much to increase the enmity for bossy outsiders for which New Yorkers had been famous for ever since it was named "New Amsterdam". While the UEG and ASC had been bad - at least they had been human.

As for being seen by the Invid, there were very few Invid that could tell one human from another, without a lot of exposure, and the actual landing in the area that Lunk and Alex had scouted out had been under the cover of a pretty fierce (and fortunate) thunderstorm. The Invid had built their hive literally into the top of the tallest building in Manhattan (built post-Dolza by a famous real estate magnate to symbolize the rebirth of the city, to challenge the size of the Zentraedi wrecks dominating other cities), and due to the hive disrupting the building's original grounding system, it was constantly being struck during the storm.

Lancer, Rand and Annie had set off at first light, Lancer using his knowledge of the area, and the fact he was originally meant to be part of the resistance forces for the region, to get them passage to Manhattan on an old lifeboat retasked as a water taxi. If the others chose to follow, it would mean a long walk north to the George Washington Bridge, since the tunnels were flooded and all the other boats around were based on Manhattan, and only came to the Jersey side for deliveries.

While everyone else could get up at their leisure, Scott (being his usual military self) got up about the time the others left, and woke Lunk not long afterward so they could start maintenance work on the mecha. Rook had stood the last overnight watch, so she was going to be out for a while, and Marlene tended to sleep until woken by someone or something - she probably wouldn't get up until Rook did. Alex & Noel, on the other hand, had other reasons for sleeping late, and finally woke up around 10 o'clock.

"Want to go into town?" Noel asked.

"Are you kidding? We'd be lucky to make it to the bridge by dusk."

"Who needs to walk?" she replied, playfully.

"Are you even up to it? You've only been able to teleport once in the last six months, and that was a blind jump on instinct."

"That shows what you know... I've been practicing almost every day since we left Louisiana, in case we had to do something drastic while crossing the wastelands to the coast. You worry too much about me, so I kept it secret. Each day, I'd teleport back to our previous night's stop, and I had a radio, in case I needed Rook to fly back to pick me up - she never had to. A jump across the Hudson should be nothing, by comparison."

"Where would you jump? It's not like you've been to Manhattan since we stopped by there during the resistance network planning conference the winter before the Invid arrived."

"I asked around, last night. One of the resistance people told me of a good spot."

"Told you?"

"Well, I did sorta sneak a peek into his mind to see what it looked like when he was there a week or so ago. It's not like I could contact Lancer or Rand, and have them act as an anchor - they still don't believe your stories of what I did back in Monument - or Scott's of what Karen did with the Sentinels, and during the fight with Edwards. I'd probably scare the crap out of them. At least Rook got some exposure to Karen a few years ago, but she's here too - and she really doesn't like me even mentioning telepathy. Karen had to do a lot of scans of her to even get the others to let Karen train her."

"I see. Rook still isn't the paragon of stability, even now, after finally dealing with the crap that drove her TO Brasilia back then. That chicken game Rand told us about was just plain nuts!"

After breakfast, they got their civilian gear on, and Noel teleported them, after telling Scott they'd got a ride across the river (mostly for the benefit of the others - Bernard knew what Karen had been capable of, even if Noel was a pale shadow of her in terms of power).

Their arrival point was the old NYSE trading floor, near the south end of the island. Like much of the rest of the south end of town, it was deserted, being too close to the Invid for human comfort, or for the Invid to let people use the buildings on a regular basis. The vast room was empty of all the furniture and technology it once held, the stock market practically being rendered moot by Dolza, and when a replacement did emerge, it was the New Nikkei Market in New Tokyo, as most heavy industry in North America ended up nationalized by the UEG to support the RDF and its components, if only because the SDF-1 initially provided the brainpower and tech base to get the surviving factories back on line, and to restore the farmland devastated by Dolza in the Midwest.

Approaching the old doors, they found them sealed by Invid materials tougher than steel plate, and half as massive. After all, the Invid hive was just a few blocks away.

Back in 2001, a group of anti-unification radicals, ran by survivors of the organization that had made an attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 (its main leadership were all "martyred" during the Global War), had tried again, using civilian airliners. What they didn't count on, was that security had increased exponentially in the two years after the SDF-1 arrival ended the Global War, and allowed civilian air traffic to resume. Of the five aircraft meant for the plot Three were to target Washington, DC, and two were to hit the WTC towers in Manhattan, to avenge the martyred Osama bin Laden. One crew meant for Washington was arrested on the ground, and the other two had their hijackers taken out by air marshals and traveling war veterans without incident, as was the plane meant for the North WTC Tower. The last plane, however, ended up crashing, as a battle ensued between the hijackers and the people aboard, several blocks south of the NYSE complex on Broadway.

While tragic, it was nothing compared to some of the atrocities of the War that had recently ended (or the actions of the anti-unification groups leading up to the Zentraedi arrival, like the destruction of Mars Base Sara, and 2 of the early Oberths in the resulting space battles). A new building, partially financed by Donald Trump and other real estate tycoons, quickly rose in the area destroyed by the impact, taller than its neighbors at the Trade Center, and using materials technology from researching the crashed SDF-1 to be bigger than any other building in the world - while actually having a hollow interior centered on the impact point, building around the crash site, but not on it. Nearly complete when Dolza arrived, it had sit, mostly unused, for two decades, until the Invid arrived - and used the structure as a support stalk to mount a hive - a hive that had its bottom level 1500 feet off the ground.

When it became apparent that there was no ground-level means of leaving the NYSE building, Alex & Noel started searching the sub-levels, and eventually found a recent tunnel that circumvented the also-sealed entrances to the subway system. Once in the tunnels, they were able to walk ten blocks further north, and finally emerge on Broadway. From there, they had a five mile walk ahead of them, as most human activity on Manhattan was centered around Central Park, as it had much of its area converted to farm land, and people tended to live where the food was, either to help work the land, or have easy access to it. Naturally, that's where the Resistance would be, as well as Lancer's little group.

For the first part of the journey, it was eerie walking through the abandoned areas of the city. Once, this street was a near-perpetual traffic jam, bustling with people, taxis and noise. Now, even as they approached Times Square, it looked like a scene out of an old zombie movie - minus the zombies, they hoped. In the Square, though, they started hearing sounds of activity - specifically that music starting and stopping, like one would hear from a stage rehearsal.

Intrigued, they followed the music, finally finding an older theater that had been "un-modernized" to the extent of having opening windows and doors leading directly outside, to allow the passage of air to do what the long non-functional air conditioning once did. As they looked into the auditorium doors, toward the stage, the rehearsal was brought to a screeching halt, literally, by its director.

"Cut! Stop it! Harvey, I swear you dance like a man with four legs! Arabelle, you look very pretty up there but we don't happen to be doing a waltz! This is supposed to be 1990, not 1770!"

"Simon!" a voice called from the first balcony. "Hey, Simon! Up here! I brought some friends to watch the rehearsal, okay?"

"Absolutely not! You know my rules about people -" Simon stopped short, recognizing the kid's companion. "Am I seeing things? Lancer, is that you, or are you still calling yourself 'Yellow Dancer'?"

Alex and Noel looked at each other, mouthing Lancer's name, then walked up to the stage, as Lancer and the others came down from the balcony. By the time they got there, Lancer was already talking to Simon, with Rand, Annie and their guide watching.

"Hey, Lancer!" Alex called out. "Small town, huh?"

"Who's the wise guy and his girlfriend?" Simon asked.

"Well, he's former Southern Cross - part of the unit that stopped the Masters, no less. She's his wife, and while she was also part of that unit, her past is a LOT more complicated."

"Complicated, how?"

"I think I'll answer that. Lancer," Alex interrupted. "My name is Alex Tyler, and as he noted, my wife and I were part of the 15th ATAC before the REF pathfinders returned. This is Noel Freeman Tyler, my lovely and extremely talented wife. Simon, how familiar are you with pop music from the 'Teens?"

"I was a teenager then, and you can probably guess from my profession that I wasn't into metal."

"I'll take that as an affirmative. Let me float a couple names by you, and see if you recall them. First, Kayra Marinoni."

"The 'Zentraedi Songbird'. Blacklisted by the fascists running the mainstream media in 2015, joined the RDF in 2016, was declared 'missing, presumed dead' that year, then mysteriously reappeared a few years later as part of Skull Squadron for the SDF-3 mission. Rumored to have returned to Earth five years ago, but unconfirmed."

That's pretty detailed."

"Well, when we heard she might have come back, we tried to locate her, and offer a new contract. I never managed to find out for sure, during the time Lancer and I were in training at Brasilia."

"You were part of the resistance training school?"

"Yep - unlike Lancer, I made it out of South America before the Invid closed the sea lanes. We were stranded down there in our civilian jobs when the Invid arrived, though those of us with actual military rank got stuck into mecha for that April Fools Day clusterf**k." The way Simon half-said the expletive almost sounded like he was trying to vocalize asterisks or some other filler characters. "I even managed to get some news out to the REF about conditions here, before the Invid clamped down here as well."

"Okay... what was your code name?"

"'Happy Feet'; what else?"

"Well, that's another stop on our itinerary taken care of. We'll discuss that business later. Meanwhile, back to my wife's sordid past."

Noel punched him in the side, for that comment.

"Hey, not so hard; remember, I'm the doctor for this outfit, and it's hard to work on your own ribs. Anyway, how about this name - Karen Ellison?"

"RDF pilot, pin-up girl and propaganda singer. Rumored for a couple years to be a computer-generated idol with Kayra providing the voice, until she made her unscheduled appearance at the Hunter wedding reception, providing a third vocal part for the Janice & Minmei song. Was also rumored that her main purpose there was to replace Minmei if she backed out, given Minmei's relationship with Hunter. Known mostly for doing late-century pop covers and translations of pre-Zentraedi songs from Anime, mostly ones with a high military content. Attempts to research her past hit blank walls, hence the wacky theory that she was some sort of virtual idol. Also rumored to have come back in 2030 - I personally think I saw her at Brasilia when I was there."

"Okay, now, take a good look at Noel."

"Wow - Fix her hair up, add about ten kilos weight, give her some makeup and get her into something a bit sexier than that jumpsuit, and she's practically the spitting image of Ellison - well, other than the fact Ellison never looked that drawn out from the road."

"Well, there's a reason for that. Remember when Marinoni was MIA for a year, then out of sight for three more? When she came back from that fold accident, she was pregnant. She gave birth that Christmas, and the circumstances involving the child put she and her husband under lockdown for the rest of the decade."

"How does that tie into Ellison?"

"Well, Kayra married Shannon Freeman during the fold accident. Their daughter got exposed to a number of really bizarre things while in the womb. As a result, that daughter matured at a very fast rate - so fast, that for the parents' sanity, she was replaced by a clone with the aging problem fixed. My wife is that clone - and Karen Ellison was actually a year-old mutant half-Zentraedi when she first appeared on the music scene."

"You're joking, right? Tell me you're joking..."

"Trust me - when we found out back in Monument, we wished it was a joke. There I was, a twenty year old officer, about to propose to my girlfriend, when she first found out that she was only thirteen, chronologically, THEN found out she was a clone of someone else."

"I think I can make you believe this crazy story," Noel said. "Ever see Mary Martin or Sandy Duncan playing Peter Pan in the stage musical? Recorded, of course."

"Sure. It's about required watching as a classic, for choreographers."

"Could a normal person do this, without harness?" Noel launched herself into the air, using her telekinetic powers, and did the a couple verses from the "I'm Flying" routine from the play, both the flying parts and singing the music.

"I'll be damned..."

"If you think that's neat, when we've not been traveling overland for most of a year, and she can get in the proper exercises, she can probably out-dance anyone here in town - probably after just sight-reading the part. And, she has a vocal range over 3 octaves. I've heard he do both Tina Turner AND Mariah Carey covers."

"Stop singing my praises, Alex; it's embarrassing, even if it's true..." Noel stopped, a foot off the floor, then dropped to the floor with a blood-curling scream that got everyone's attention.

"What the hell? Noel, you okay?"

"I am - the people here, aren't. I sensed the Invid - they're done with the city, and are going to wipe it clean, starting at the north end of the island, and working their way down. We've got to get people to shelter, and get the mecha over here to stop them."

"Simon, get your people to shelter," Lancer ordered.

"Noel, can you get us back to camp?" Alex asked.

"No, I've barely got the strength to get just myself back there, after that little flying show."

"Then go back, and tell Scott, Lunk and Rook what's happening." Noel nodded, and disappeared after Annie handed her the Protoculture cells she was carrying..

Lancer turned to Rand & Alex. "Do you think this is happening because we're here? I mean, it seems that the Invid really have it in for us, and might have brought this on, simply by coming here."

"Don't play that game, Lancer. You know as well as I do, that the Invid would eventually take this city out, just like all the others, when they were done with it - and that end was pretty much written by their no longer needed to export Protoculture to Asia & Africa. We just happen to be in a position to try to stop them, this time."

When Noel arrived, the others were already warming up their mecha, having pulled the cells with the highest charge from her Alpha to better power their own. Noel popped in the new cells into the fuel receptacles of her Alpha, and started it up. She noticed that Scott had gotten Marlene strapped into the Beta cockpit; not for any combat reason, but to take her along rather than leave her alone in their camp. Once they got to the rendezvous location, Marlene would be getting out, and Lancer would fly the Beta.

Lunk was also flying an Alpha, the one normally shared by Rand & Lancer. While he wasn't trained in using its other modes in combat, his training did include the ability to fly it in Jet mode, as part of the requirements for testing repairs and transporting repaired mecha back to their assigned unit after repairs - and he'd gotten a lot of the same additional training in the mecha that Rand & Rook were given by Scott & Lancer (and later on, Alex), even if he usually never left the wheel of his truck. This time, the truck wasn't going to play a factor, and he needed to get the Alpha to Rand.

The three Alphas and the Legios screamed through the artificial canyons of southern Manhattan, shooting any Invid they saw in an attempt to draw the Invid terrorizing the northern end of the island back down to protect their hive. Once, when Scott shot a lone scout that had dropped down to street level, Noel was far enough back to see that the people he'd saved were actually Lancer & Rand. Mostly, though, the Invid they were finding were the hive guards that doubled at most hives as the slavemasters and enforcers of the Invid edicts - of course, now attempting to execute the humans of the island.

The Invid quickly disappeared in balls of fire over the next hour, as the weapons of the Alphas were overkill for the scouts and enforcers (which could be dropped by the assault rifles developed for human vs. human warfare). Apparently the carnage became too much for the Invid, as one of the human-piloted Battloids showed up to intervene. Indeed, it appeared to be one of the very same two mecha that had chased them from Mexico, up the Pacific coast and across the mountains all the way to Colorado. That short battle ended in stalemate, and while the Invid ran for reinforcements, the humans could only wait for a sign as to where to find their friends. That signal was not long in coming, as soon they picked up a radio broadcast.

"Hey, guys!" Rook called out. "Check the civilian radio bands!"

"Hey, that sounds suspiciously like an old buddy of mine," Lunk replied.

"I think I found that sign you were looking for, Scott," Rook added. "Check out that building at three o'clock." Off to their right, in the dimming light of the evening, they saw the former headquarters of an airline that had gone defunct before the Global War, its windows lighting up to spell the word "HERE". There was a concert light show up on the roof, and Lancer was broadcasting live, which could either be considered inspiring, suicidal, or both.

"That's Lancer, for you," Scott deadpanned. "Is he supposed to be calling us, or distracting the Invid, with that stunt?"

"I think both, Scott," Noel called back. "'Ol' Blue Hair' is back with a bunch of his Invid pals."

"Follow me down to the deck, synchronize your launchers with mine, and prepare to fire on my mark... NOW!" The four Veritechs launched a spread of missiles, none of them directly aimed at an Invid, but in a blanket formation where the blast radius of each missile overlapped, to create a wall of destruction that the lesser Invid could not survive. As for the big one with the human pilot, it was scorched and battered around, but was relatively unhurt. But, it did have to retreat, to replace the losses it just suffered.

"Okay, we've got another respite. Let's go get those guys into mecha. Noel, you take over the concert, so we don't have to worry if you have a relapse."

"Good idea - this fight has already given me a headache."

"Nice shooting!" Alex called up to Scott, as the latter opened his cockpit after setting the Alpha/Beta combination onto the helipad.

"They'll be back," Scott replied wearily, then went back to the Beta to extract Marlene from its cockpit.

"Alex?" Alex turned to find his wife, already out of her cockpit.

"Noel, you're a sight for sore eyes."

"You're not that bad, yourself. I need you to take over for me in the Alpha. I've really overdone it this time. With a little luck, the Invid will give me enough recovery time to take over on stage for Lancer."

"Will you be okay, here?"

"I should be. Lunk's swapping out with Rand. I'm not totally helpless, just tired, and Lunk can watch me until I get my second wind."

"Fine." He kissed her passionately, then they started walking over to her Alpha, where Annie was already reloading the power cells. "That ought to charge your batteries. How long till you take the stage?"

"About 20 minutes. Not even war can stop union-mandated coffee breaks."

"Typical."

"Hey, Alex - you coming or what?" Rand yelled over his Alpha's external speakers.

"Okay, okay..." Alex climbed into the Alpha's cockpit and started it up, as Noel walked over with Lunk, Marlene & Annie, to take cover in by the stage. The Veritechs lifted off, and were soon out of sight. Lunk sent Annie down to check on how much longer the band would be, before coming back up.

Suddenly, an explosion threw the three adults off their feet. Lunk was knocked out cold, having been closest to the detonation. Marlene staggered to her feet first, and was looking around. Noel had been knocked over an air vent, and almost stood up - then dropped back down when she saw that the pink Invid Battloid had landed on the roof, facing Marlene. Always before, when encountering Lancer or Marlene, the pilot of that mecha always seemed to hesitate, and Noel wanted to know why. It was apparent that the pilot was going to hop out of her mecha, and confront Marlene about something - and Noel both suspected, and dreaded, what it was.

"Ariel; I am Sera, Princess of the Invid, and I have come for you," the strange woman stated.

"But, my name is Marlene; I don't understand why you've come for me..."

"Because you've turned against your own people; and I must know why, before we begin the transmutation of our race. Why have you disobeyed the Regis?"

"I-I don't believe what I'm hearing! I'm not an Invid!"

"You were placed among the people of Earth to learn their plans and report back. As of this date the Regis is still awaiting you first report. Do you expect me to believe that you have forgotten who you are, and why you are here?"

"No, no, NO! This can't be!"

"What do you mean?" Sera asked, still not realizing the extent of her sister's amnesia.

"You're lying - you must be!" Somewhere below, either a stray shot or a secondary explosion caused the whole building to shake.

"The battle comes closer; I will deal with you later, Ariel." With that, Sera turned and ran to her Battloid, as Lunk started stirring, oblivious to what had just happened.

Noel stood, and watched Sera's Battloid fly east towards Reflex Point. Her theory about Marlene, the one she had never dared say out loud, had proven true. And, what of Ariel? When Noel had nearly died, in that backlash of psychic energy, she had cried out both names, "Marlene" & "Ariel". Who was this Marlene that so totally scrambled Ariel's programming - for that matter, HOW did it occur? It was apparent that, despite Scott's crying out his dead fiancee's name in that attack, Ariel had chosen that same name from somewhere else. Noel was starting to see things in Marlene/Ariel that were eerily similar to the things that she had experienced over five years before, when her own memories were in conflict with the mental echo that Karen had sent back to Earth with Carpenter.

"But, what of Sera? In her reaching out to her sister, she failed to connect to Ariel, but Noel caught a fair amount of bleedover from the attempt. The struggle within Sera's mind was obvious as well. Both Sera and Ariel would have to make some very difficult choices in the next few weeks; choices that could spell victory or disaster for humanity.

Noel walked over to Marlene, who was visibly shaken (and shaking) from what had just occurred.

"Marlene?"

"W-what is it, Noel?" The poor girl was on the verge of shock.

"We need to talk, woman-to-woman." Noel dropped her voice to a whisper. "I saw the whole thing, and I understand. I want to help you understand, as well."

However, before Noel could get Marlene to a private place to talk, the others blew the hive, and it nearly incapacitated both women. Any attempt to have that talk in the short term was put aside, as they had to go help load up the last Protoculture they would need for their own private trip to Reflex Point, from Carnegie Hall. There was a lot more there than they expected; Highlander and the other resistance groups in the Eastern Hemisphere must have hurt the Invid much more badly than expected, if so much of a backlog of unshipped cells had accumulated.

Finally, they all flew back across the Hudson to where the truck and Alex's hovertank were hidden. It would only take a few days from there, to reach the eastern frontier of the Reflex Point complex, and the central hive only a week away, if they were foolish enough to try to go in solo. Given what Noel witnessed, it was highly likely, if they tried it, they'd probably even be allowed to get there - but it would be crazy to even consider, nonetheless.

Foremost in their minds, though, was the one big question. The REF should have started arriving last week, but there was as yet no sign of them. What was taking them so long?

**Chapter Three:**

"I'm a peripheral visionary. I can see the future, but just way off to the sides..."

-Karen Freeman, quoting 20th century comedian Steven Wright, epigraph in The Plane Truth

_**Tongue of the Ocean, The Bahamas**_

"Remember the last time we were here?" Karen asked her uncle, gazing out at the islands as they stood on the flight deck of CVS _Vulcan_.

"Yeah; we stranded Rick & Lisa on one of those islands to get him to finally get up the balls to propose to her, and you stole their clothes while they were asleep. As it was, we were lucky they were in a good mood when they came back, as friends or not, we were all still their subordinates, and they could have busted all of Skull for doing it - I'm not sure that even Lang and Breetai could have kept from being prosecuted for their parts in it."

"Those were simpler times - if a bit bloody from the Malcontents. At least then, we understood the enemy a little better."

"What's the ETA for our last arrivals?"

"Marie's in flight from Africa; she should be here in about twenty minutes. After then, it's a matter of getting Dana and the others aboard, and debriefing them. Their intel should be useful, but there are some things that are well, better left for the actual debriefing."

"I'm not sure I want to, hearing that. Give me an example."

"Would you believe my brother-in-law, in a Battloid-mode hovertank, riding a Bioroid Hovercraft into combat, doing bad Clone Master impressions over the externals to try and incite the Invid?"

"That boy is truly strange."

"He reminds me a lot of you, when you were younger. That's probably one of the things that attracted Noel to him in the first place." Karen kissed her uncle on the cheek, but in a way that made Scott a bit uncomfortable (as she came close to nibbling on his earlobe). As much as he loved her as his brother's daughter, he had long known that Karen's feelings for him were a little bit abnormal for said relationship. It was probably a side-effect of her rapid aging and a series of emotional crises occurring over 5 months, that most children take 20 years to go through. The idea of a physically adult, mentally child, going through the Electra Complex while all of those teen hormones running through her veins would probably have given Freud a stroke.

He decided to cool things off real quick, by giving her a quick shove off the flight deck of the currently motionless carrier. After all, she would have plenty of time to teleport back to the deck, before she hit the water. However, she apparently picked up on it, drug him with her, and did a short teleport to a few feet over the water, then teleporting them back to the flight deck, after they surfaced, and before any alarms could be activated.

No, Karen, he thought - you are the one that's really strange - and you've been acting more and more strange, as the date for the assault approached. Something was really eating at her, that was bringing out a lot of the "weird" stuff in her personality that had been dormant for most of the last decade.

The assault of the Okeechobee Hive was launched at 0800 the next morning. Scott & Marie led the attack, flying in one of the few shadow Legios that the group had modified with devices acquired in the rare shipments from orbit. Highlander would handle the air assault, while the Southern Knights and the _Vulcan's_ Hammer, Aegis and Lightning Squadrons would cover the transport of the ground forces. The light ground teams, those that were in power armor, were being carried as close as they could to the complex with low-flying hovercraft derived from old Zentraedi hover platforms. The heavier stuff needed a little longer trip, as the SLV _Jason_ went overland on its contragravity hover systems to debark the Destroids & Battloids in the ruins of Indiantown, and something that large and slow would need a lot more air cover. While they COULD have used modern craft to transport the stuff in, most of those newer items used Protoculture power systems - it would probably take the Invid longer to detect the non-Protoculture _Jason_ (fitted with sufficient dampers to not reveal the Destroids within) than the hovercraft loaded with active Cyclones.

Not counting Cyclones, the assault force consisted of over 400 mecha of almost every type that had ever walked, flew or rolled out the design studios of humanity's Robotechnology labs. About the only types not present were pre-Zentraedi prototypes, the pre-Masters prototypes of Japan, and the aquatic-only mecha of the navy (The last of which were waiting off both coasts of Florida to serve as rescue vehicles). However, even with those kinds of numbers, they still found themselves outnumbered by a factor of ten, by just the scouts.

"Everyone hit the breaks and go upright! Launch Plan Delta, on my mark!" Delta involved the Legios teams of the first wave going to Battloid, synchronizing their SRM launchers, and each team blanketing a specific region with proximity detonations designed to create a wall of destruction. While this tactic took out half the incoming Invid, it also took half their load of air to air missiles. However, that would give the Cyclone forces the ability to make a dent in those numbers without being themselves overwhelmed.

The shadow mecha then proceeded to the edge of the barely-visible energy shield of the hive. Each of the mecha dropped to ground level, and used their disruptors to hole the shield for the infantry that was coming up behind them. Once through, they regrouped at the hive entrance, and repeated the process with all their disruptors combined, insuring the shield would not be coming back up any time soon. Of course, all these disruptions without apparent cause (not to mention a volley of several hundred missiles from thin air), meant they'd be expecting company any time now, and the hive guards (unlike the other Invid) used both optics as well as Protoculture sensors, and would see them despite the shadow devices. They would have to find their way to the hive center, quickly.

"This way," Karen said, motioning with her Alpha's free hand. She was standing in front of a mecha stasis chamber. "There's a drop tube in here, though its support field is turned off."

"You think you can lead us to the Brain?"

"With my eyes closed." She stepped off into the tube, gradually descending on the foot thrusters of the Battloid. The others followed, hovering down too levels into another stasis area. They hadn't made it more than a few steps into the chamber, when the alarms rang out. Even the non-telepathic people heard the telepathic call-out.

"Warning! Intruders in hive center! All Invid in hive come to Brain's defense!"

"Okay, everyone, hit the kill switches on the Shadow Devices. We don't want only half the Invid seeing us - even they could figure out something's up!"

A firefight soon began, at first lopsided in favor of the human mecha, but then two of the human-piloted mecha arrived, and they were soon in one of the toughest fights they'd ever had. Scott's Alpha lost an arm, and sustained severe leg damage, before the two newcomers were even scratched. Seeing this, Marie and Karen dove into the fray, firing missiles at such close range that they were damaging each other almost as much as their targets. The end result was that there was little left of the two enemy mecha, and Karen's Alpha was only slightly better off than Scott's (missing its arms, instead of an arm and a leg), from actually having grabbed one of their foes and holding the larger mecha for Marie to shoot at. Karen chose to get into her Cyclone, and let Scott take over her Alpha (in Guardian mode).

As they approached the Brain chamber, Karen stepped into the way.

"Before we try force, let me try talking to it."

"Are you out of your mind?" both Karen's father and uncle exclaimed in unison.

"Trust me; I might be able to get it to shut down like the one on Tyrol."

"I'll give you a shot at it;" Scott replied reluctantly. "But one false move, and it's toast."

Karen took her helmet off, and walked up to the brain, calling out with her telepathy.

"Hey, You!"

"Who are you, human, to dare approach me this way?"

"My name is Karen. You may call me your master. I am the slayer of the Regent, and his human ally. Submit to my will or be destroyed!"

"I only obey the orders of the Regis,", the Brain replied, seemingly amused by the claims.

"Perhaps, I can change your mind."

A battle of wills commenced, even more intense than the one she had with Edwards, on Optera - after all, she was looking to NOT kill this foe. It went on for several minutes, the others having to occasionally fend off Invid coming to the Brain's rescue, before the brain slumped to the bottom of the tank.

"Is it dead?" Marie asked.

"No, just sleeping, until I wake it up. If you contact our forces outside, you'll find the Invid outside are non-responsive. If you can get them to hold off, I can call the Invid in a few at a time, and put them into storage. I've engineered a hostile takeover. As long as I don't get them within a few hundred klicks of the Regis, I should be able to even control a small force, mentally."

"You've got to be kidding me," Scott said.

"Nope. We should be able to use this hive as our base camp, since the Regis now thinks the hive is gone. It will allow us to make up some of the time we lost getting here."

"Well, if we do, YOU get to write the report on why and how.." Rick's never gonna believe this...

The next day was even stranger. Karen had mastered the controls of one of the human-piloted Battloids, now painted in RDF Red & White with unit insignia. She'd also had several scouts painted in similar colors, and was now using the Invid mecha to scout further north, while waiting for repairs of her mecha. Scott took one look at the motley crew of candy-striped Invid flying north in the evening light, then went to bed. "Face it, Scott. Rick won't believe this, even with video footage," he mumbled to himself.

**Chapter Four:**

"Scott (Bernard) had been trying to deny it ever since he first had those thoughts about the connection between Sera, Corg and Marlene. Marlene refused to believe what she had been told in Manhattan. The truth cut through both of them, straight to the heart. Scott felt betrayed by his own heart, Marlene by her origins. Why does love have to hurt so much, some times? The events of the days leading to Reflex Point prove just how human the Invid were really were."

-Noel Tyler, interviewed by Maria Bartley-Rand, for the "Protocultures: Macross+60" documentary (2059)

_**Pennsylvania**_

What could have been a journey of a single day, was now in its third day. Scott was playing it safe; Alex understood that, as did the others. But, something had come over both Noel and Marlene, something neither one would discuss, though it was obvious to the others that something had happened. It was a bit unsettling to both Scott & Alex, as neither could find a way to broach the subject. They were currently camped on the Allegheny River, not far upstream from the crater lake of old Pittsburgh. They had already planned on breaking camp. But the lights of a large battle to the west had kept them in concealment until the battle died down.

Finally, they ventured out to see the results of the battle; Scott in the Legios, everyone else on the ground. In the valley leading towards the former site of Pittsburgh, enough shattered mecha were scattered that a future archaeological dig might make the mistake of thinking that the references to the Steel City was to the graveyard of mecha, since the real source of the name had been vaporized decades before. Despite the far greater number of Invid wrecks, it was clear that the human side had lost. As they watched, the last Legios of that assault force crashed into a hillside almost a mile away, trailing smoke from its Alpha cockpit area, but strangely not being pursued by the Invid. The majority of the Invid left, on the other hand, appeared to be retreating back toward Ohio.

The wrecked Veritechs, though fairly piecemeal, had obvious differences to those the group was using. One obvious difference, to Noel & Alex, were that some of the mecha had to have been Shadow-equipped, like the one they'd seen crashing on a failing autopilot.

"Karbarran, Tracielle Works;" Noel noted, studying the remains of an Alpha, mercifully missing its cockpit section. You can see the factory insignia on the wing roots. And, I've only seen that wing insignia at briefings on what to expect when the REF was ready to assault Reflex Point." The insignia was a stylized J in a heart. "Jupiter Division, isn't it Scott?"

"I believe so;" Scott replied. When I left Tyrol, the Karbarrans hadn't got their mecha factories working up to REF quality standards, even for producing parts for assembly by the REF itself. The heart symbol was one of the ones being discussed for Jupiter, when Mars Division left,"

"Noel, keep the others here," Alex stated to his wife, solemnly. "Scott and I are going to go search for survivors; Stay here, and be ready to set up an aid station, if we find ambulatory wounded."

"I will, but it doesn't look good, does it?"

"No, it doesn't; If Mars Division was any indication, some idiot back at Tyrol wasn't training the pilots how to do atmospheric ejections."

It was as they feared; they found no survivors. They did find some mecha whose cockpits had been intact until impact, but it was obvious the pilots made the mistake of trying to crash-land instead of using their ejection system. They checked the Legios that they saw crash, but found its Beta empty, its bomb bay doors open, as was typical for missions where the Beta was used to transport small units of Cycloners behind enemy lines - so there might be a survivor or two, somewhere.

"What should we do now, Scott?" Lancer asked. It was on all their minds. Should they wait for the next wave before advancing, or continue on, and hope to link up with the expected forces coming up from the south? For that matter, if they did wait, should they take the time to try to lay the identifiable dead to rest, or avoid the wreckage in case the Invid come back looking for survivors?

"Can't we just leave?" Annie pleaded. "I hate this place."

But, before anyone could try to answer her, an Invid they thought dead staggered back onto its one good leg, tried to walk toward them, then collapsed again, truly dead, from the effort. The nutrient fluid from its cockpit spewed everywhere as it fell on its face.

"Everybody back off!" Rand cautioned. "Remember what Alex and Noel smelled like after they used their sabers to go for those cockpit kills in Colorado?"

"Don't remind me," Alex replied; Even with the decontamination showers they had access to, it took several days to get rid of the smell on them, and it wasn't until they got to Hot Springs for Annie's birthday, that they were able to completely get the smell off their ride armor & Cyclone.

"Hold it right where you are! Don't move!" A woman in black ride armor ran towards them, a video camera on her shoulder.

"Who are you?" Scott asked. "Are you from Admiral Hunter's group?"

"How about you identifying yourself, first?" she snapped back. "You're not wearing armor from this attack wave, after all."

"Commander Scott Bernard, formerly of the Twenty-First Squadron, Mars Division. Most of the others here are indigenous forces trained by Vulcan Division, or actual members of that force on detached duty. And, you are?"

"You actually made it this far; Scott; I'm impressed. Don't you recognize me?"

"Can't say that I do."

"We were on the SDF-3, until I left with the Sentinels; Sue Graham. I'm with Intel Division, now, attached to the Thirty-Sixth Jupiter - or at least I was. My orders were to film the initial assault, and transmit the recording back to the fleet in Lunar orbit, so they could look for exploitable weaknesses. I barely made it out of my Beta after sending the recording - I don't think it will help them much."

"Was that all you did? Film the battle, while your squadron died?" Scott wasn't happy.

"It's not like I was trained to use any of the weaponry - the Alpha pilot had it slaved to his controls, and I was lucky to figure out how to pop the Beta doors to get out. And, another thing - I wasn't part of that squadron - I'd never met any of them, before the attack; I'm a Corps intel analyst and archivist, not trained for front-line operations."

"Then, how did you get assigned to filming an exploratory assault?"

"I... I made someone mad at me."

Scott still hadn't really placed her, then it hit him. Sue had been high-school age media prodigy; old enough to legally be an adult, by post-Zentraedi standards, but she preferred the "gifted high-school reporter" spin. She managed to use her parents' positions in the REF to get brought along as one of the documentarians for the mission, and from there, left the SDF-3 with the Hunters to go on the Sentinels aid mission. As he remembered the Sentinels' triumphant return, he realized that Graham was never far from the Admirals - especially Rick. Scott had a sinking feeling as to what might have led to Sue's presence here, the lone survivor of a recon by force that was doomed to fail, as it ignored the lessons that he and the other resistance forces of Earth had learned over the last 1-4 years.

"Look, don't you think we should get out of here before the Invid show back up? I don't think your Protoculture emanations could have been picked up for a more than a hundred miles. Besides, that carcass probably reported us in its dying thoughts to the hive."

"Unh... Scott, the Invid are coming back!" Marlene warned through a wince, but everyone but Sue could have told that from just looking at her. Strangely, the Invid deaths earlier hadn't bothered her, as they had as recently as Manhattan, but their approaching communications were doing it now.

"Push over your Cyclones," Sue suggested, after seeing how many were on the horizon, still too far for the Invid to see them, but in numbers massive enough to be seen.

"Make them look like the riders were thrown, or put them through half a depowered transformation, and push them over. If there's no sign of activity, and they look abandoned or wrecked, the Invid usually ignored mecha in our fights on Praxis and Garuda."

"It's worth a shot; we sure can't just stand here," Scott acknowledged, looking at the gross or more of incoming Invid (resembling locusts on the horizon), and the others quickly followed suit.

The Invid came, then left, but not before kicking around Lunk's truck a bit (almost into the river - and it had only been stopped by hitting a huge downed tree that probably had been lying there since the Zentraedi knocked it down), and poking at, if not actually stepping on, the Cyclones. After the Invid wandered off (probably thinking the dying Invid was hallucinating in its death, or remembering its mortal wound, Noel suggested), they recovered their Cyclones (including Sue's, she'd left hidden outside the clearing), and returned to their camp for their mecha. They then slowly relocated downstream to a thicker thicket of trees downstream on the shore of Lake Pittsburgh.

As the sun set on their new camp, Sue took pictures of them with her digital camera and printer, and she did her best to bring them up to date on the status of Operation Eviction. The others were really interested in her description of the Shadow mecha; but not Alex & Noel, who had already used them in combat. They found the Synchro-cannon more interesting, which used a smaller version of the reflex cannon technology of the SDFs and the GMU - in fact, it had long been thought that one couldn't get a working reflex cannon that small, and as former tankers, it really sounded neat. That one had been airdropped, with the recon by force as a cover, was surprising; but since the transport carrying the crew didn't make it, it seemed a bit moot.

Before Sue could discuss the field piece further, a new group of Invid arrived, and sat down in a clearing only a couple hundred meters away, as the humans quickly doused all the lights in the camp..Amazingly, though, it appeared they hadn't been seen.

Leading this group was one of the human-piloted Battloids, a different one than the two that had been their shadows all the way from Mexico to Manhattan. The pilot was a blonde man, whose verbal orders to his Invid subordinates left no doubt as to who was in charge, or as to what they were looking for - the synchro-cannon.

"Human pilots!" Graham whispered loudly. "How did this come about?"

"We were hoping you could shed some light on it," Alex whispered back. "They started showing up about a year ago. Were all of Edwards' traitors accounted for on Optera? We ran into a few of those that deserted him before he fled there, and they weren't all that nice, but the few of these that we've ran into don't appear to be any more cognizant of Earth culture than the typical REF deep colonist, and those types died like tropical flowers in a hard freeze."

"They can't be Edwards' people, they were all accounted for - I covered their trials."

"Then, where could they have come from - clones?"

"Who knows - this is something REF back at Tyrol hasn't heard of yet, at least at my security clearance level."

"I know we reported it about 5 months ago, directly to Admiral Hunter;" Scott whispered. "We managed to get a link to fleet up temporarily in Utah. I'm surprised you weren't informed to watch for them."

"Hunter's not exactly completely in charge back there - the council is trying to armchair general the war, and none of them ever served a day in uniform. Even I have more military experience, thanks to the Praxians making sure all of us women in the Sentinels could defend ourselves. But all those people who never left Tyrol, and slobbered at the feet of Edwards while we were getting killed on Karbarra, Praxis, Garuda and Haydon IV now somehow think they are the only ones who know how to handle long term planning. There's even talk of doomsday weapons for use on Earth if they can't liberate it."

"That's insane!"

"It is; I'm hoping it really is just a rumor, but I'm afraid it isn't; there's some reason why a lot of the empty old Pioneer Mission colony ships got called to Tyrol to be refit for Saturn Division - it sure isn't for personnel transport, as you well know."

"Don't remind me. Sue, do you have any idea what happened to the synchro-cannon?"

"It was dropped about five kilometers away from the battle. When I finally bailed from the Beta in my Cyclone, I went back to the drop zone, and hid it in a cave that looked to be what was left of an old mine blown open by the Zentraedi. I'd driven back, trying to track the Beta as it drifted down on its failing thrusters, when I spotted you. It was supposed to have been on a stationary hover, but its systems were failing even as I bailed."

"We've got to get that weapon before the Invid find it."

"It can wait until morning - the Invid are looking in all the wrong places, and they'd never recognize it mixed in with all that mine rubble in the dark. But, once you get it, you'll be on your own. My Cyclone's only weapon is mightier than the sword in proverb only, and the Praxians gave up on training me with anything more complicated than basic self defense, as a lost cause. I'm a media face and a data gatherer, not a frontline warrior; sorry."

"Just great..." Scott snarled, but realized it was probably an accurate assessment. "Do you think you can lead a couple of us to the weapon in the morning without being seen?"

"It shouldn't be too hard, so long as the inertial mapper doesn't go on the fritz, and the Invid don't jam the signals from the long-range GPS satellites Jupiter division launched beyond lunar orbit - of course those sats are only gonna be good for a week before they drift beyond their accuracy tolerances."

"Good; we'll leave before sunrise."

"Scott, don't do it," Marlene pleaded, having sat quietly through the entire encounter.

"Marlene's right, in a way," Alex interjected. "Scott, you'll be needed here with the Veritechs more than you would at the controls of the cannon. I could go, since I've got the most heavy gun experience, but that experience would probably be best used here. If Rand goes, we'll have our best mecha pilots here, and if we have to abandon the gun, you can pick them up in the Legios. I've got a plan that might just work."

"What's that?"

"The gun really isn't all that good against swarms, though it will blow holes through them. It was meant for use assaulting the hive itself. So, it doesn't matter which of us is at the controls. Sue gets Rand to the gun, then they move it on its auxiliary power to where he can get a few good shots at the Invid down by the lake, from the other side from us. There appears to be a veritable camp of them over there - the Regis must have told them to not come home until the synchro-cannon was taken care of. Rand softens them up a bit with the cannon, and when they take the bait, we lift off and hit them in the ass. They won't know what hit them."

"It might just work. Rand, you feel up for it?"

"I can't wait to get my hands on it - though I'm not to sure about this idea of me as bait."

When the others got up in the pre-dawn light, they found that Annie had gone with Sue and Rand, and they had left an hour ahead of schedule. Scott smelled a rat, suspecting that Sue was wanting some good human interest footage at the gun, before the actual footage of the gun in action. They had barely gotten into their mecha, when the synchro-cannon opened up, destroying multiple scouts on the ground. The four Veritech aircraft waited about a half-minute for the Invid to rise off the ground, before taking off themselves, as Alex got hull-down on a debris hill with his Spartacus in Cannon Mode, and started taking shots at the biggest normal Invid mecha - Scott was going to take on the human pilot personally.

Two minutes after the first shot was fired, over one hundred Invid had been destroyed, mostly by Rand after he figured out how to change the beam focus to get a shorter, but several times wider, beam, on the pulse bursts. He wanted to go continuous beam, like some of the old pics of the SDF-1 in action, but that required having a spaceship (or at least the GMU) as a power source, so he had to stick to pulse mode. He was working on his second hundred by the time the Invid finally managed to figure out strategies other than flying down the throat of the gun. He had Annie set a demolition charge on the cannon, and they ran, noting with a little irritation that Sue had left before he'd really gotten good with the gun. The cannon blew up while surrounded by two dozen swarming scouts, destroying the aliens as well. By the time he made it to the rendezvous with Scott & Marlene, the situation was well in hand, though the human pilot was still being elusive.

Rand separated the Beta from Scott's Alpha, and soon found himself in a duel with the Invid leader, before Annie and Marlene had the chance to fully strap into the bomb bay's bench seat. It seemed as if the man knew it was the heavy gunner that had destroyed most of his forces that had taken the controls of the Beta, and was bent on vengeance. As he did so, nearly all of the remaining Invid fled back toward Ohio, as their mission of destroying the synchro-cannon had been accomplished - taking care of Rand was personal.

Rand tried to fire his missiles, only to find that the missiles wouldn't arm due to a separation glitch making the combat computer think the Alpha was still attached and in the way. He then switched to the Beta's massive arm cannons, that he'd only used once before (to great effect) on the other male-piloted Battloid they'd fought in Manhattan. It took some fairly radical flying, more than what Scott had thought Rand capable of, to get into point blank range, before he opened fire. The move caught the Invid by surprise, and Rand hosed him down with all six barrels on full automatic. The Invid mecha took several hits that would have each been catastrophic on their own, and quickly plummeted to the ground right in front of Sue, who was filming the battle from much closer than she should have.

Somehow, the pilot survived the crash, only to be finished off by friendly fire, as an armed scout strafed Sue, not realizing she was unarmed and no threat to the pilot. Everyone quickly rushed to her as they killed that scout, and made sure no other Invid were still in the area.

As they approached, both Sue and the pilot were hemorrhaging badly; this was already fatal for the Invid, and probably so for Sue. But, the really disconcerting thing was the fact that the "human" Invid pilot had bled the same green as any other Invid.

"Is this guy really an Invid, or what?" Lunk asked.

Scott put the Invid out of his mind, and went to see Sue. "Alex, how is she?"

"Terminal; if we had access to a Zentraedi cloning chamber, I might be able to have it reconstruct her spine, and even then it would be touch and go. There's nothing I can do for her. She can still talk, but I've given her a spinal just above the trauma."

"It seems I've got pictures of an Invid with the body of a human," Sue gasped, to Scott.

"Were they worth dying for, Sue?"

"Anyone who bleeds green blood must be an Invid," Annie erupted behind them. "But, why would they make themselves like us? He looks human, but he didn't react like one of us; right, Marlene? Uh, Marlene?" When Marlene didn't answer her, Annie looked up to see Marlene staring at her own arm, where she had been cut by the tumbling around of the Beta in that gunfight. Green blood was seeping from the wound. Slowly, everyone's eyes turned to her, as each noted others looking, but all were trying to deny what they were seeing.

"No - NO!" Marlene screamed, shaking her head in her hands.

"Marlene," Scott pleaded, walking up to her, putting his hand below the cut on her arm. He didn't want to believe it, but when he brought his hand back, he had to accept the reality of the green blood on his hand. "Marlene, I... I..."

Marlene turned, and ran into the dark woods, tears streaming.

"No, wait!" Rand called, but Scott held him back before he could give chase.

"Scott, the facts are staring you right in the face and you're just going to have to believe it."

"You're wrong, Sue, because that woman proves what a person is made of doesn't determine their spirit or the love they possess. But, we've got to accept one thing - Marlene will never feel the same around us, knowing what she does now. She has to find her own way, her own life."

"I can sympathize with her," Sue said, weakly. "I just wish I could start my life over again. Tell Admiral Hayes that I'm sorr-" Sue's eyes closed, and the rest of her body went as limp as the part below her wounds.

"She's gone," Alex said, quietly.

Scott stood erect, and saluted her. "Sue Graham, you were the most dedicated woman I've ever met in my entire military career. Good-bye, and be at peace." The others joined in the salute, as Alex disengaged Sue's wrecked Cyclone from her corpse; it was likely that had he attempted that earlier, it would have killed her instantly, as it had helped immobilize her. He laid her out, then gathered up the packs she'd had slung over her shoulders, holding her spare cameras, recordings and photos.

He looked through the latter, the last being a snapshot of a much more carefree Scott and Marlene, taken the previous afternoon. Alex's heart went out for Scott; the anguish Bernard was going through was a bit like what he had gone through when he had discovered Noel's origins, and from what he'd heard, a lot more like what Scott Freeman had gone through with Marie.

Noel came up to him, and put her arm around his shoulder. Alex looked into her eyes, and knew without asking that Noel had known about Marlene's true nature before this tragedy.

"Noel, why didn't you tell us?"

"I- I couldn't," she whispered, trying to keep the others from hearing. "And, would you have believed me, if I had suggested it? And, how would the others react - or she react? She only found out in Manhattan, and it didn't go well when she did, then - she was in denial right up to now."

"Put that way, you're right. Noel, what's to become of them? Scott & Marlene..."

"I don't know. All I know is that tomorrow will be the finale; for better or for worse. Before the sun sets twice more, the war will be over."

And, as the sun rose to the east, rumblings of battle echoed from the southwest, like the thunder of a distant storm.

**Chapter Five:**

"Sherman said 'War is all hell', and it is. But, too many people tend to forget this, which leads to their late realization of this truth even uglier." - Scott Freeman

It was around 1400 local time when they reached the locale of the fighting they'd heard at dawn, or at least the eastern end of it. The entire Ohio Valley from the Big Sandy down to the Kentucky was a war zone, one still being pacified. The heaviest fighting had been in the Cincinnati area, amidst the ruins of what had been the capital of the xenophobic nation of York. The battle for the fortress of Prince Harry, located at the former Kings Island amusement park, had taken much of the day, and Highlander was still setting up their field headquarters in the ruins of Goshen, when Bernard's group flew in at 1800.

The lack of continuing combat was disturbing; a human commander with the resources of the Invid would have continued to press their numerical advantage - yet the Invid were actually allowing the REF forces to consolidate. The only thing that would make sense was that there was sort of indecision or leadership conflict going on at Reflex Point - but wasn't that impossible for the Invid?

"Hey, Alex!" they heard, as they walked toward the center of camp. Alex turned and saw Sean Phillips coming out of the officers' mess line with a stack of covered food trays.

"How's it hanging, Sean? I'm surprised Marie hasn't killed - or at least, gelded - you by now."

"The Invid have kept her too busy to try. Come on over to the tent and join us for dinner. Marie, Dana and the Colonel are in a conference with General Fokker and the Jupiter Division commanders right now, but they are supposed to join us in a few minutes, so I got nominated to haul the food over. I've got enough extra trays for you four officers, but the enlisted and civilians will have to go through the line. Before you object, the line has the better food - probably hotter food too; the only advantage officers get is having dinner more quickly, because of all the planning and reorganization we'll have to do tonight."

Alex & Scott looked to the others for a decision, but saw it was already being made for them. In fact, Rand and Lunk appeared to already be drifting towards the chow line, and Rook & Annie were almost to that point.

"Sounds good to me; Rook, tell the others we meet back here in 90 minutes."

"Gotcha." She and Annie quickly fell into the chow line behind Lunk.

As they entered the mess tent from the kitchen area, the tent seemed to quiet a bit, as the people who entered were recognized. One of the people at a table near the door stood, and practically lifted Bernard off the floor with a bear hug,

"Glad you made it, boss."

"Ben? Ben, is that you?"

"In the cloned flesh. You know us Hunters - we're hard to kill."

"Did Claudia make it?"

"Yeah, but she left about ten minutes ago. Highlander managed to divert most of the third wave to Africa. We heard about what happened to your wave. I heard about Marlene; I'm sorry."

At the mention of the name, Scott went somber, and walked over to Sean and the trays, then left with his tray.

"Damn, is he still giving himself that much trouble over her death?" Ben asked, as Sean brought their trays over

"No, we think he'd pretty much shook that by the time we got to Point Kilo;" Alex answered. "but that's where his other problem came from. We found an amnesiac in the ruins there, that answered to Marlene as well. Over the last year, she traveled with us, and Scott fell for her pretty hard."

"What happened? She die too?"

"If only it had been so simple. The spearhead that got slaughtered yesterday over Pittsburgh had a single survivor; she led us to where they'd dropped the Synchro-cannon, and we used it to distract the Invid this morning while the rest of Jupiter came in, and you guys moved up from the south. That survivor died, but we won - but in the victory we got a double shock. First of all, we found out that the Invid pilots we thought were human, are actually Invid in human form. The bigger shock was that the girl that had been traveling with, that Scott had fallen for so hard, was one of them."

"Oh... my... God."

"Considering those goddamn Battloids didn't start showing up until about a month after we rescued her, we think that the girl was a prototype of some sort, either left for us to find, to see if they could pass as human, or was a prototype they had abandoned. If she was a spy, she wasn't doing it knowingly or willingly - and had she been actively spying, we'd have been killed in our sleep long before we got to this side of the Rockies, as they had ample opportunities to do so, had they had a mole in the group."

"Do you have a picture of her?"

"A few, that got taken yesterday. The resemblance to humans is about perfect, About the only way you can tell is if they aren't acting human, or if you draw blood. Noel?"

"Here you go;" Noel said, digging the picture of Scott & Marlene together, laughing, from the bag of Sue's personal effects.

"Wow, she's a looker. And she's an Invid? It seems like every one of these we've ran into could have been a movie star - we should have realized that something was funny."

"Ben, what happened to Scott?" Claudia asked, having come back into the tent. "He looks like he's been through hell."

"As we heard, Marlene didn't make it; then this morning, he found out that his latest girlfriend was actually an Invid simulagent with amnesia."

"You're kidding-"

"I wish I was. Karen's little sister brought in this picture of them, from just a few hours before they found out."

"Hmm... looks like a professional's work. Isn't that Sue Graham's identifier on the back?"

"Yeah - they were some of her last. She died about the same time we found out that Marlene was an Invid."

"Scott named her after his dead girlfriend? That's kinky!"

"Not exactly - near as we can tell, she chose that name herself, though she may have heard us talking about Scott's fiancee."

"She actually looks like she could be the original Marlene's sister. A little taller, a little lighter and longer hair, but their faces are similar - especially the eyes. That's really spooky."

"Ben, Claudia - how well did you know Sue Graham?"

"Too well," Claudia replied. "In the months that we lived with our parents after our cloning, she was always trying to get way too friendly with me, to use me to time alone with Rick. Eventually, we had to leave orders she wasn't welcome anymore. I'm surprised she was with the assault force, even as a mopic."

"Attention, people; here comes our fearless leader!" an anonymous voice yelled into the tent.

Scott Freeman walked into the tent, followed by his wife, his niece and the squadron leaders under his command. Karen, Marie Freeman and Marie Crystal sat down with Noel, and started talking up a storm, making Alex feel left out, as Lancer had gone to check on the others. In fact, Noel ended up being the one to give them the information on what was quickly dubbed the "Fifth-Stage Evolution Invid". Eventually, Scott Freeman left the others, and took Alex aside.

"Alex, Noel said you're upset about something."

"Yes, to the point I'm wanting to resign my commission immediately after the battle."

"That's a little extreme; what's this about?"

"You remember Sue Graham? She went with you on the Sentinels mission."

"Yes; Noel told me she died this morning."

"Lisa Hunter had her killed."

"What in the hell are you talking about?"

"She went in with the 36th Jupiter yesterday, and was the only survivor until she was killed by the Invid. She had no business embedded with a combat unit, especially one going on what was known before launch to be a probable suicide mission. According to Sue, she was there because she'd pissed Lisa off - and talking with the Hunter kids confirmed it was because Lisa thought Sue was a homewrecker, and wanted to get rid of her."

"That's a gross oversimplification of what really happened."

"Sounds pretty cut and dried to me; an abuse of power for personal reasons."

"Remember who you're talking about, Commander. Not only is she your superior officer, she's also your wife's godmother. Before you spread that around, you need to hear the whole story, and for that I'll have to send back for copies of my personal correspondence. Meet me in the command tent at 0500, and I'll show you what really happened. Until then, keep Sue's claims to yourself - that's a direct order."

"Fine. But, your evidence better be pretty damn convincing." Alex stood, and walked off, steaming.

"Scott, you were pretty hard on him."

"I had to be; heck, I was tempted to deck him when he started accusing Lisa of those things."

"I know that Dad talked to you about what was going on, but you've told me so little about what was occurring. Are you going to tell me any time soon?"

"It's a long, convoluted, story. It's best if you sit in with us when I talk to him tomorrow."

"Colonel?"

"Come in, Alex, and sit down. If any of the others in your group feel the same way, you can pass this along to them." Scott handed Alex a folder with several transcripts and text messages in it, along with Sue Graham's evaluation reports.

"Two months ago, I got a call from Max Sterling, who has been living on Haydon IV for most of the time since the Regis departed from there, on her way to Earth. He told me that Lisa had contacted him for advice on reassigning Graham. She wanted Graham reassigned from Uranus Division, which is the SDF-3 complement, to Jupiter, which was to leave Tyrol two days after the call. For obvious reasons, she felt that it would be improper to cut such orders personally. Max wasn't too thrilled with the idea either, so he called me to discuss his options. After a few quick conference calls with Lisa and Rolf, we got down to the root of the matter, and arranged the transfer."

"Then, that makes you as guilty as she is."

"Guilty of what? You see, Graham always has had a crush on Rick, almost as bad as Minmei was infatuated with him back in Macross. Of course, a lot of young girls have had crushes on the heroes of the Zentraedi War, but Sue was in a position to act on them. It's a known fact that she never dated anyone during her time with the mission - Lord knows, there were more than enough guys on just the Sentinels mission that would have given their left nut to go out with her, let alone back on Tyrol - she was one of the few young, single females left on the entire mission, by the time you were fighting the Masters. She started trying to get in tight with the cloned daughter of Rick & Lisa, trying to find out their schedules and when to be alone with Rick. The premise was that she was working on a biography of Rick, and was trying to get him to agree to meet at her apartment for some interviews."

"That sounds suspicious, but can you prove anything?"

"Well, up to that point, the evidence was circumstantial. But, then she was seen buying a very sexy piece of lingerie, items for a romantic dinner for two, and not much else, when she was supposedly out doing research for the biography. Remember, despite her looks, Sue was quite the camera nerd, and according to her last physical, still a virgin. She was probably getting her ideas for seduction from romance novels. She made a few conversational slips to the girls working at the store that she had a hot date lined up - and the only thing remotely on her schedule was the 'interview', and no one, not even her neighbors, had ever seen her with a boyfriend or girlfriend - yes, they even checked that out. It was fairly obvious, by that point, that Rick was going to be the target of a seduction - one that probably wouldn't go anywhere, and probably would have embarrassed Sue, more than Lisa - but it could have caused no end of scandal. This, at a time when Rick & Lisa's faction was already losing more and more power to the 'chickenhawk' faction that's been trying to 'armchair general' this conflict for the last five years - you've seen where that's led, and how many people have died as a result of their stupid ideas, stupid military planning, and stupid tactics. If Sue went ahead, it could be disaster for Earth.

"On seeing this evidence, we approved the transfer, but we made it a reporter's dream assignment. She had clearance for any information, any mission, any equipment. She had full freedom to do whatever she wished, once Jupiter Division reached the solar system. Once here, instead of staying with the majority of Jupiter Division that was to hit Earth today, she chose to go with the 36th, despite warnings that was almost certainly to be a suicide mission, as Vulcan was a day behind schedule, and wouldn't be able to cover their arrival. She took over one of the few Shadow-equipped Betas they had, which required that the Alpha pilot keep the Beta attached.

"I talked to Colonel Harrington, who was originally supposed to have had her going in with one of his Cyclone units. He told me that he felt that Graham's motivation for going on the Veritech assault and cannon deployment was to get great footage of the Invid, that would give her a means to try to worm her way back into the Hunters' lives when they arrived today. Maybe, she even thought that if she got injured or killed in combat, it would put Lisa into a major guilt trip, if not incrimination like what you were feeling yesterday. We went to great extremes to allow Sue to avoid combat; but she chose to make a nuisance of herself in the attack, and became part of what she knew was a suicide mission before she joined it. Ironically, she did get that important footage she wanted, but it cost her life."

"We couldn't have known..."

"I know; I guess Sue thought she lived a charmed life. When everything collapsed around her, she needed someone to put the easy blame on. Right up till the end, she couldn't handle that she only had herself to blame."

"Colonel... Scott... That's not entirely true. I think I understand Sue's last words, now. She was trying to say, 'Tell Admiral Hayes I'm sorry'. I'm not sure how much of it was apologizing for the events that lead to her being back on Earth, or how she squandered the opportunities she was given once she got here, but she did make the effort."

"Then she finally learned responsibility, a day too late. I'll relay the apology to Lisa when she gets here."

"Don't; not just yet. She'll probably misunderstand, the way that we did. Save it for tomorrow."

"Then you have grown up more as well, in the last few years. You were still a bit naive, even after facing the Masters, and you're definitely not the same little boy Karen rescued off that cliff in Montana back in 'Seventeen."

"That was you? I had almost forgotten."

"Yes; me, Marie, Karen and Roger. Hikaru would be proud of you, if he was still here."

"Karen and Noel... Did Karen know, back then, about Noel and me, when she saved my life?"

"I don't know; I've never known Karen to see possibilities more than a few days prior. And, I know that when we got back here, five years ago, it was a shock to Marie and me that you and Noel were a couple, as Karen never mentioned you again, after helping Hikaru set up your accelerated education."

"If you don't mind, sir; I've got to get back to Bernard and the others. Noel and I have been acting as irregulars too long to easily assimilate back into a normal unit."

"Go with your friends; friendship may be what it takes to win this war, if what Noel and the others told me about that Invid that traveled with you for so long. Karen said for you all to look for her; she might be the key to ending this conflict without annihilation of one side or the other, much like Miriya or Musica."

"Do remember, Colonel, that in both those cases, it still came pretty close to annihilation."

"Too true - but it's a thought. Even Zor Prime's going to try to get to the Regis to talk to her, though I don't hold too much hope for that, given how even the Masters misrepresented his part in the betrayal of the Invid. Good luck, and I hope we both live to see the end of this day."

As Alex left, both men started to cry. The events of the last twenty years were coming together, and no one knew how or why. All that was evident was that something big, something final, was going to happen today. But would it be a dark finale, or a symphony of light?

**Chapter Six:**

"Noel:

I wish I could tell you what to expect today, but there's no guarantee any hints we've seen of today will actually happen as we think, and truthfully, even talking about it to each other could jinx us, by changing how we react to things as they come. Today, thousands of years of history come to a tipping point; not just for us, but for the Invid as well. If things go badly, try to protect our own, and the Invid - the one thing certain is that the real danger to us all is the dark side of humanity, and those that would use that dark side to their own evil benefit. The shadows that obscure our path have deep roots, and not obvious ones. If we fail here, our last hope lies in crossing the boundaries of our own existence, and taking the fight to our true foe. The shadows must not win, even if it costs our lives."

- Note left by Karen Freeman in Noel's helmet, the morning of the Battle of Reflex Point

"Scott, we've got problems," Roy Fokker called from the Ops tent. Scott Freeman was outside, doing the final pre-flight of his Shadow Alpha's systems.

"What's wrong?" Scott noted that Roy didn't look this unsettled when he lost his base in South America. "The fleet did show up, didn't it?"

"Rolf just called down with the final report. Saturn Division folded in as scheduled, and the Jupiter Division forces on the Moon have rendezvoused with them. Only, one ship failed to defold on schedule-"

"You got to be kidding..."

"We have to face it; something's happened to the SDF-3 - again."

"Dammit... Did they leave on schedule?"

"Tyrol HQ reported that they left less than a minute after the rest of the fleet. I'm beginning to think that Lisa's father was right when he said that 'SDF' stood for 'Ship of Damned Fools'. So far, the command SDFs are zero for three in fold operations."

"It might not be that bad; remember that the SDF-3's engines have been modified several times since their last use, when the rest of the fleet - other than the Zentraedi ships - are using engines built from scratch with the Nichols Protocols. The numbers might have been a little off, and they could arrive late. I'm sure that Karen would have said something if anything catastrophic happened to them."

"There's another issue - the Saturn Division fleet is bigger than first reported, and there's a ship class I've never seen before, that they won't let me have any information on."

"That's weird. What are they - some sort of assault ship?"

"No, that's the strange thing. They are bigger than anything else in the fleet, other than the SDF-3 and the fleet command cruisers, but the only thing identifiable in their construction is an engine section based on a Garfish, that's less than 1% the tonnage of the entire design."

"That sounds like the Pioneer Mission's self-contained colony ships. A bunch of them were made for establishing pre-fabricated colonies in hostile environments, but only a couple actually deployed to planetary surfaces, since most of the systems they colonized had habitable planets, and the colonies wanted to not live under domes unless they had to."

"These don't look like domes; they look like escape pods with seating for SDFs in Battloid mode, and they've added shadow devices to them."

"Then I don't know what they are. Deployment vehicles for multiple MTUs or GMUs?"

"Possible, but at that size, they'd have to land in the Great Lakes, and the vehicles swim ashore. Could be heavily armored Destroid pods, or a carrier for multiple ballistic insertion pods for ground troops."

"Ugh... Ballistic... I wouldn't want to be around if something like that did a crash and burn."

"Isn't that the truth."

"Sure you don't want to saddle up with us?"

"Claudia would kill me, if the Invid didn't - I've got less than 100 hours in Veritechs since I was cloned. I'd be a liability up there. It's best if I stay here and watch. That means, the fate of the world is on your shoulders, not mine."

"You had to put it that way, didn't you?"

"Balloon goes up in twenty minutes - good luck."

"I'll see you at the victory party."

"Sure, as long as you're buying..."

Scott Bernard's group had been assigned to Colonel Harrington's force, but there were regulations that had to be followed. As much as Rook and Rand protested, they were told they had to stay behind at the deployment point, and wait to be called in as reinforcements - only persons that were active duty military were allowed to participate in the initial assault. Pointing out that there were several other units of irregulars going in did little good, as those groups had the external appearance of being military units, while Bernard's team had been too small and too mobile for classification as a resistance army, instead being classified as guerillas. Annie's participation, of course, was right out. Of course, even Alex & Noel were having issues, as only Lancer and Scott were being allowed to use their Alphas.

"Why can't I use my hovertank, sir?" Alex complained.

"Because it's too big in comparison to the rest of the unit you're going in with - I can't break the TOE to have just one tank heading in, Lieutenant," Harrington replied

"Then, what about Alphas? We've got them to spare."

"Alpha pilots, we have, and that's not your primary training. You've been trained in special ops, and we're a bit lacking in experienced troops in that role. Hell, you and your wife are the only ones in the entire infantry battalion with experience actually penetrating a hive on Earth - not to mention your Southern Cross service, where you penetrated the defenses of Tyrolean vessels no less than four times. You're lucky I don't split the two of you up as company leaders, instead of assigning a single squad to the two of you."

"If you put it that way, Colonel..."

"Just do your job, and get these rookies in. I have more faith in your experience than I do most of the officers that have been with me for the last year - they've got good book sense, but their extent of experience has been VR sims and fights with combat remotes piloted by Karbarrans & Praxian operators. Those rovers might have had combat experience against the Invid, but it doesn't mean they always make the training remotes act like the real thing."

Soon, the attack signal came, and none too soon. The Invid, who had seemed to wait for the humans to come instead of attacking in masse, rose in response, and the clashes soon created a panorama of carnage as far as the eye could see in both the air and on the ground.

The ground forces had only been gone a couple minutes, when Rand just couldn't take it anymore. He turned to go to his Cyclone, Rook giving chase, only to find someone standing there. She looked like Noel, but was in a dedicated flight suit without CVR.

"Going somewhere, Rand? My sister told me you wouldn't just stand by and watch."

"I don't care if I'm not military; this has been my fight for the last two years, and I'm going in whether the REF likes it or not. The time has come for a little well-meaning insubordination."

Karen chuckled. "Question - is it still insubordination if I give you this, and tell you to go?" She tossed him a wallet-sized pack. "After talking to Noel last night, I figure you've earned it, but it took a while to convince my uncle."

Rand opened up the wallet, and found it contained an ID card for him - as a brevet 3rd Lieutenant. "Is this for real?"

"You bet. And, this one's for you, Rook; it's for the rank you would have had, if they'd let me commission you back at Brasilia. Congratulations, Lieutenant Bartley."

"Thank you, Karen."

"That's Lieutenant Commander Freeman to you, now, Rook;" Karen smiled. "You better catch up with the others. If Bernard gives you a hard time over the ranks, tell him he has to take it up with me - even if he does outrank me, I doubt he'll push it."

Rook looked, and saw Rand already pushing his bike toward the line, trying to get a head start. "Rand, wait for me! You'll get killed going in alone!" She vaulted into the saddle of her Cyclone, and took off after him.

"What about me?"

Karen turned, and looked at Annie. "Do you have to ask? Go find Lunk."

"How? He's out there, who knows where."

"Just follow your nose. Move it; he needs you - or more accurately, he will need your help, by the time you catch up to him. That's an order, Cadet Mint. I can't put you into uniform officially, but I can sponsor you to the academy. Just don't get yourself killed before the start of the next term."

"Alright!" Annie took off running for the battlefield. "See you at the hive!"

"You too, Annie," Karen whispered, then teleported back to her Alpha to wait for the order for the air assault to begin.

"Well, Karen's back from whatever she was up to;" Marie commented. "In the nick of time, as usual."

"This is it, Marie."

"Scott, the life I've had with you, I wouldn't have traded it for anything."

"Same here. Between you and Karen, I can honestly say I haven't had a dull moment in decades. Nineteen years, if you count all that Dana/Zand intrigue before the fold accident, that led to Karen's birth, aging and creating you afterward."

"Speaking of me," Dana interrupted, "I think you two need to get your minds back on the battle. We're ten seconds from launch and you've not given the order to spin up the engines."

"Fine, then. Highlander, let's show these space jockeys how you really fight Invid. Power up, and launch at will!"

The Legios of Highlander Squadron lifted off the ground in Combined Guardian mode, shifted to Jet Mode, then streaked forward to provide invisible support to the troops approaching the hive force field perimeter. Overhead, the non-cloaked ships of the REF fleet approached Earth, drawing the Invid into a two-front defense. The final battle of the Robotech wars was underway.

**Chapter Seven:**

"It is one of the commonest of mistakes to consider that the limit of our power of perception is also the limit of all there is to perceive." -C.W. Leadbeater

The first barrier to overcome was the main force field, which extended over three miles from the exterior of the closest sub-hive of the central cluster. Scattered between the force field and the incoming troops were thousands of lesser rank Invid, that had been dug in months before, and left to hibernate until called on to defend the hive. This gave the Invid a great level of advantage against the ground troops, through surprise, but the act of bursting out of the ground tended to leave the Invid similarly vulnerable to being dispatched by an overhead Veritech, if one was present. The end result was massive casualties for both the Invid and the Cyclone troops. However, as the Cycloners closed on the force field, they became more vulnerable, as the Veritechs were spreading out as the majority of ground forces spread out, encircling the force field as they advanced.

One of the original purposes of the energy field was to provide a microclimate laboratory convenient to the hive for the Regis' research in evolution and adaptation, and as it started getting hit by the disruptors from the Alphas and Vindicators of Highlander and the Jupiter Division squadrons, the energy surges caused the controls to go haywire, and as the weather started swinging wildly, the specially engineered plants within responded, shifting through seasons in minutes, only surviving from drawing on the Protoculture "compost" the Invid had laid down to allow the special plants to shift with changes in climate. When the troops first entered, it was spring, matching the real climate outside. But, soon, it swung through summer, then fall, the chill of winter, and back to spring, with the leaves of the trees literally growing, turning, falling (well, getting caught up in the wind gusts caused by the temperature swings, rarely hitting the ground), then sprouting anew, right before their eyes. The confusion of this, added to more Invid, added to the chaos within the human ranks, and few units remained cohesive for long, and most had already taken at least 50% casualties.

Alex and Noel's recently assigned unit fit this description unfortunately well, as only two of their subordinates were still alive, despite their best efforts. Only two of the casualties had been less than instantly fatal, and Noel managed to "convince" the body of the one injured the worst to heal itself to the point of being transportable by the other, and divided their remaining ammunition between them. But, by this time, all they really had left was EP-37 ammunition, and their sabers.

"Noel, how badly is this messing with you? The last few Invid seemed to catch you by surprise."

"There's so much telepathic interference here, I'm lucky to pick you up next to me."

Alex looked up, as two Alphas passed overhead. There was no mistaking who was piloting them, as the blue one had 21st Mars markings, and the green one, that of a North American unit decimated in the April Fool's Day Massacre. "Good - Scott & Lancer made it in." Suddenly, Lancer's Alpha took a violent hit, after something seemed to distract the two. The now-Battloid Veritech began to plummet towards the ground. "Eject, dammit! Eject!"

But, instead of ejecting, or even crashing, the Alpha was CAUGHT by the pink Invid Battloid that had been dogging them for most of the last year.

"Well, I'll be damned..." Alex muttered. "Why the hell she do that?"

"Marlene's not the only Invid that's fallen in love with a human," Noel replied. "Not that she fully comprehends the emotions, yet."

"Oh, wonderful." Then, looking beyond them, he saw what had made Lancer and Scott pull up short, in the first place. "Speaking of our favorite Invid, is that her floating up there like the Ghost of Christmas Past?"

"Yes, that's Marlene. I can hear her; she wants us to follow her, into the hive."

"Then, tell her to lead on. It's a cinch that we won't get much closer on our own."

Scott Freeman felt like he was up to his helmet seal in bogies. No sooner than he or Marie would drop one, another - if not two - would take its place. Then, suddenly, there seemed to be a hiccup in the rush of Invid. In the brief break in the action, the report came in about the strange incident with Belmont and the Invid, and Scott figured that it was a sign that he should head in the direction that the report stated that Bernard, Belmont and the Invid were taking, as it probably would give the best opportunity to act on Zor Prime's mad plan. To that effect, he also called Dana, Zor, Karen, and Angie (the nearest free Beta, and who already had experience working with Karen and Noel) to join him and Marie. They got to the area in time to hear that Bernard's entire group, including Alex, Noel and the former civilians, had already entered the hive, but no one else could get in.

"Karen, I want in on what's about to go down in there; can you get us in?"

"No problem, Uncle, but it's best if we only take one Legios. Just do me a favor and don't shoot anything while we're in there, If you want to get in to see the Regis, you got to trust me - and don't go off on your own; the travel system in here is nothing like what you've seen in the other hives."

"Do I have a choice?"

"No, not really. And, you remember what we found out about Earth's past 18 years ago?"

"Yeah, about the Masters?"

"That was only half of the story. I've deliberately not told anyone the other half of what I found out before. You're going to find out the rest in a few minutes; I don't know which of you will be more surprised - you, Zor or the Regis."

"I can't believe it," Rand said to Rook. "We've made it inside Reflex Point." They appeared to be drifting down a long, dark tunnel, that resembled a holographic star map room. Their Cyclone flight thrusters were on, yet they weren't doing the actual propulsion, and while they could SEE fairly rapid movement, their inertial sensors indicated they were completely still.

"No offense, Rand, but I think I preferred the view from outside better."

"You're not the only one, Rook;" Alex replied. "Noel and I are right behind you. Don't try turning to look - I've TRIED to turn, but I can't seem to move in this place."

Shortly, though, they found themselves at the end of the "corridor", and felt an odd tingle as they teleported onto a platform in a large room. Thankfully, whatever had locked them rigid before, now released.

"Yippee, everybody's here!" Annie yelped, as she looked around the room.

"I thought I told you two to stay put," Scott said to Rook & Rand, as he vaulted out of the cockpit of his Alpha, to the floor. "You're not soldiers."

"Correction, Scott," Rook replied. "You thought we weren't soldiers. Our commissions arrived by a very special courier after you left us. Noel's sister delivered the paperwork and ordered us into the battle - she said that if you didn't like it, you can take it up with her."

"Great. I gather Marlene led all of us here?" Scott looked around at all the nods. "Noel, you're telepathic - did you pick up any indication why she brought us here?"

"Not much, but I think we're here as witnesses, of a sort. I think we'll get the full explanation in a few seconds; we've got company coming."

"The hive has been contaminated!" a booming female voice shouted from the light that suddenly appeared above them. "Foolish humans, you have come here seeking to look upon the face of the Invid. So be it; you shall see." The voice paused, and everything else went black.

"Behold; I am the Invid. I am the soul and the spirit. I have guided my people across the measureless cosmos, from a world that was lost, to a world that was found." The light began to coalesce into a humanoid form. "I have led my people in flight from the dark tides of shadow that engulfed our forefathers, that threaten to engulf us even now."

Now, the Regis' form was clearly visible, and though she had a mouth, it did not move when she 'spoke'. "I am the power and the light. I am the embodiment of the life force, the creator-protector. In the primitive terminology of your people, I am - the mother."

Alex couldn't help but think "And, what a big mother you are", then quickly squelched that thought, realizing that the Regis was using telepathy to communicate with them.

"You are surprised?" the Regis continued. "So were we, when we discovered that the planet to which we were led by the Flower of Life was already inhabited, by a people that resembled the Tyroleans, but were not that race. That alone was the reason you were not immediately exterminated."

"I'll say it's inhabited!" Rand shouted back.

"That is of little consequence. Your species is nothing, when weighed against the survival of my people. We have suffered enough - the Invid life force WILL NOT be denied!"

"NO!" Marlene cried to her mother, to everyone's surprise; especially the Regis, it seemed. "That's not right!" She had resumed the human form she had when she traveled with the group, instead of the energy form she had led them here.

"So, Ariel, it is true; you are a traitor. Was it you that led these children of the shadow to the hive?"

"Yes, I led them here - but you must be made to see that they are not children of the shadow. They have a life force and a spirit almost as strong as our own."

"They are the enemy of our people."

"If they oppose us, it's because WE are trying to do to the same thing to them that was done to us, so many years ago." Marlene then turned to Scott.

"Scott, listen; listen to me. Perhaps if we could begin again, we might be able to find a way for our two peoples to share this planet together in peace."

"I'm sorry - but you know that after the acts of the last four years, that's not possible."

"So, you'd rather have the death and destruction continue?"

Instead of Scott, Lunk responded forcefully, uncharacteristically for the man who had spent three years avoiding any type of conflict. "That's right, Marlene; to the bitter end. Let me remind you - it was YOUR people that invaded this planet; it was your people that attacked the SDF-3 in our first meeting, without warning or any attempt at communication. Remember?"

"I do," she replied, almost ashamed of the fact. "But, Lunk; you traveled with me, you took care of me; I even think you maybe liked me a little bit. I'm no different a person now, than I was then. Why have your feelings changed so?"

"You're an alien."

"Exactly. And the fact that I could travel among you as a friend, all of us unaware I wasn't human, means that perhaps we are not so different, your people and mine."

"Ariel, look at these 'friends' of yours," the Regis rejoined. "Notice how they stare at you in fear and confusion; emotional states which in their species inevitably lead to hatred and violence."

"Yes, they are confused, because they feel that I have betrayed them; but they are not full of hatred!"

"Your contact them has blinded you to their true nature, my child. It is the genetic instinct of their species to destroy what they cannot understand."

Rand couldn't stand by any longer. "Wait a minute, dragon-lady; I've had about enough of this. How do YOU know what we're really feeling in our hearts? So, Marlene's an Invid. Okay, that was a kind of surprise; but we don't hate her for it. We know she's risked a lot to help us; to even get us here to talk to you. But, as far as you're concerned -"

Before Rand could make the point the Regis was acting in the exact same manner she accused humanity of, she knocked off his feet with a bolt of telekinetic energy.

"See, Ariel; violence is as natural to them as breathing. Their entire history is a catalogue of murder, conquest, and enslavement, all directed at others of their own species."

"That's not true," Marlene countered, as Sera suddenly appeared beside her sister.

"Forgive me, Regis, but I have begun to doubt whether we are any better than they," Sera shouted at her mother. "You say that their species is guilty of murdering and enslaving of their enemies; but how is that any different from what we have done on this planet?"

"So, you too have been turned against us."

"Regis, look at them," Marlene pleaded. "They are not animals or barbarians. They are a brave and noble people trying to protect what is theirs, just as we would do."

Without warning, the sphere above the Regis flashed, and the image of the blue-haired Battloid pilot appeared.

"Have you all gone mad?" he demanded, mostly referring to his sisters, but also wondering why the Regis had not yet eliminated the intruders, which she could have done almost without effort. "How did these humans gain entrance into the hive? Sera, remove them at once."

"I was not aware that I had to obey your orders, Corg."

"Your contact with these rebels has made you weak and spineless-"

"-And it has made a monster out of you, consumed by vengeance and evil passions!" Sera countered. "YOU are a child of shadow, and not these humans!"

"What are you saying? This pathetic species you have become so fond of cannot be stand in the way of our future!"

"Fool!" Lancer shouted up at Corg's image. "If you keep fighting, there won't be a future for ANY of us!"

"Enough; I am called to battle, and that is where my duty lies." Corg's image dissolved into an image of his mecha, then faded, as they saw him begin decimating a flight of Alphas.

"I've got to stop that lunatic!" Scott exclaimed.

"Wait, Scott!" Marlene called, but he paid her no heed. As he lifted off the pad in the apparently sealed room, he found himself teleported back to the corridors near where they entered the hive, and found Corg waiting for him. They quickly took their battle outside, but the others quickly lost track of them as alarms went off in the central hive chamber. The overhead display filled with images from space - the REF fleet had come within sensor range of the hive.

"Well, that does it," Lancer said solemnly. "Any hope of a peaceful settlement has just went down the drain. Heaven help us all."

**Chapter Eight:**

"I have seen the mystics labor

Once or twice, but I knew they had a reason

Enchantment plays its cards all right

Hand in hand with the workings of the seasons.

Legends can be now and forever

Teaching us to love for Goodness' sake

Legends can be now and forever

Loved by the Sun..."

-Jon Anderson, "Loved by the Sun"

As Scott and Corg squared off outside the hive, they remained unaware of the fleet's move into the battle. Finally, Corg caught Scott off-guard, and crippled the latter's Alpha. Only the intervention of some of the last surviving Jupiter Division Alphas allowed him to escape and crash-land back near the rally point he'd launched from that morning, but those pilots lost their lives in doing so, and the rally point appeared deserted, as no one came to his aid. Only Marlene was truly keeping track of what was occurring, and she teleported out of the hive to go to Scott's side, and her departure initially went unnoticed.

"All units, regroup and form emergency formations. Repel the invaders at all cost!" the Regis called out telepathically to her children. She then turned to Sera. "Your defection has cost us much, my child."

"It can't be!" Sera cried out, watching Invid of all types being destroyed seemingly by invisible foes.

As more and more of the Invid died, Lancer and Alex noticed parts of the sphere above them darken. Lancer finally asked about it.

"You are very perceptive, human," she replied. "Every time any of my children cease to exist, our entire race is diminished, losing part of its strength."

"Regis, those are Shadow Fighters; the way they're designed, they are invisible to Protoculture scanners, which means most of your people has no defense against them, since Corg squandered his brethren like him against our original attack. Isn't there some way to resolve this before any more of them die? You can't fight what you can't see; you're the only one that can end this destruction."

"Twice before, in our recorded history, we have been forced to relinquish our home, and journey to another star. This time, we will not leave."

"Don't you know when to take 'No' for an answer?" Lunk shouted. "You've been out-maneuvered, and that's that."

"Mother," Sera interjected; "perhaps what Lancer says would not be amiss, in light of their current numerical advantage." Although the Invid had arrived nearly one hundred million strong, most of these had been put into hibernation shortly after arrival, to await greater Flower harvests and the result of the Regis' evolution experiments. Now, over eighty million of those Invid slumbered on, unable to be wakened because of the destruction of their hives, yet their lives had also been spared by their hibernation pods, that could not be penetrated by anything short of a disruptor shot, and those weapons were too costly per shot and prone to failure from use to expend on sleeping Invid - and was as equally likely to wake the Invid as to kill one.

"With all your incredible powers, why can't you find some other world to transform into a home; one with no natives to be in your way?" Lancer asked.

"You cannot understand," The Regis replied. "The Flowers choose where they will grow, and grow properly. This world holds the last known Flowers of Life in the universe. We cannot leave, for we have no other place we can go."

Suddenly, another, unexpected, flash of light lit the platform. Where Bernard's Alpha once sat, a Shadow Legios now sat, parked in Jet mode.

"Who else now defiles the hive?"

Karen teleported to the fore, as the rest of her companions exited the Beta by more conventional methods. "Lady Regis, my name is Karen. I have come to you to offer you a way out. But, before you consider it, I must tell you something. Like my sister here," she nodded to Noel, "I am a telepath, and have been listening to the entire debate you have had since you discovered their entrance into the hive. But there are some facts, critical parts of the story, that even you are not aware of. As you said, Earth's history has been one of violence. And, twice in Invid history, the Invid had to flee their homeworld; the second time because of its desecration for the benefit of the Robotech Masters, at the hands of my mother's people."

"You are half-Zentraedi?"

"Yes, and more. There are things about me, that in many ways make us almost as sisters. But, as I was trying to say, your people have forgotten the truths of the loss of the first home. It is mentioned in your legends, sung in your songs to the flower which came with you from that home. But the actual events around that loss, even the location of that world, have been lost to you for twelve thousand years. Regis; welcome home; this is the long-lost first home, devastated in an awful war that your parents' people instigated. The survivors of that war, disgusted with the betrayal of their leadership, fled this world, led by their greatest scientist, Haydon."

"Haydon knew my parents? Why didn't he-"

"He cared nothing for you, your people, or any other sentient beings, at least after becoming the deranged god-like being that he is now. All he cared about was becoming immortal, which he accomplished, and gaining the powers of a god, which led to his most heinous crimes against your people. Regis; once, long ago, Haydon, your ancestors, were all HUMAN. But, he changed all that, manipulating the ancient religion of those people, saying that their children had no right to be human; had to become lesser beings, to become the penance for their parents' evils. In reality, he saw the power that a fusion of the Flower of Life and a sentient being could eventually attain, through self-evolution, and was setting your people up to be the power conduit that would one day make him a god,"

"You must be lying; that is too incredible."

"Am I? Our peoples are so much alike. If I am lying, then can you explain why your son Tesla became near-human, simply by eating the mutated Flowers of Life of the Sentinels worlds? Had he, or the Regent, actually gotten to partake of the fruit of the uncursed Peryton, they would have become as human, or more accurately - more than human, as I am. Even your genes remember your former form, and the flowers were programmed to attempt to reshape you back to that form - one that Haydon secretly kept, behind his facade of being a paragon of each race he contacted. Unfortunately for him, his near-immortal body finally gave out because you took too long to attain this enlightenment, and he had to become an energy being, residing in the secret heart of the Haydon IV artificial planetoid - and awaits for you now, to arise from Earth, for his final betrayal."

By this point, Rook and Rand had noticed that Corg had defeated Scott, and took it on themselves to go look for Scott and Marlene, and confront Corg personally. Dana Sterling and Scott Freeman both wanted to go as well, in the Shadow mecha, but were restrained by their spouses. Rook and Rand found, that by their sheer desire, they were teleported from the hive to the mecha park where their Alphas had been left, and quickly lifted off. As the red and green Alphas squared off against the yellow and green Battloid, even the Regis paused to watch, and motioned to Karen that further talk would have to wait.

As Rand fell, hearts sank; then Scott arrived unexpectedly in his Beta, and the second battle between him and Corg was shorter than the first, but with a completely different result. Bernard used a frontal attack on the Battloid to distract Corg from a second volley of missiles that had been set as heatseekers, aimed for the flight thrusters of the Battloid. The resulting explosion consumed Corg and his mecha utterly.

While the combatants landed outside, Karen and the Regis resumed their discussion.

"Don't ask me how I discovered the true history of our peoples; it would take too long to explain, other than the survivors of the faction your ancestors attacked also fled Earth, and became the Masters and the Praxians. Those poor people left behind were little more than savages, and slid even further back into barbarism, and became the ancestors of the humans of Earth. Ironically, those legends of the once great races of man that had ascended to the heavens, led to much of the atrocities of the last ten thousand years on Earth, as groups mistakenly believed that they were the descendants of those peoples, when those peoples were across the galaxy. Even gone, legends of the Indiva and Aztlan Tyr killed as many people over the millennia as their descendants did in the last thirty years."

"Why should I believe you?"

"Would it help you believe, if I told you that I believe her completely?" Zor Prime said, finally stepping forward to where the Regis could identify him.

"Zor? You are not the clone I studied on Haydon IV."

"I am another clone, created by the Masters themselves to try to take my knowledge by force; my brother, whom you studied, was one created by my mentor, to try to find a way to stop the Masters, and return the Flowers and Optera to you. As a result of how the Masters made me, I recall completely the defiling of Optera. I was not in control of myself when I... I did what I did to you; I had been reprogrammed almost as thoroughly as a Zentraedi, though my superior mind managed to break that programming in time to save you and your people, and the small area that was left unculled. I then tricked the Masters into letting me seed other worlds with Flowers you could use as food, not realizing that, in fact, this was part of Haydon's dark plans, and why he helped me break free of the Masters. Had I truly known what he had planned, I would not have sent the Matrix here, though I would have still sent my ship here to stop their war, and to allow them the means to destroy the Masters. Karen and her sister have great power, and great insight. It is only due to those women, that I survived my vendetta against the Masters. If she says that something is true, you can believe it to be so."

"If I were to believe you, then how could you save my people?"

"Soon, you will sense another planet to go to, but it is a lie," Karen replied. Optera is being restored by the Praxians - yet Haydon is blocking your sensing of it. What you are sensing instead is a dimensional breach, which will convert the life force of the Invid into a stream that would give all of your power, and then some, to Haydon - and return the Invid to the barely sentient foragers that he turned you into twelve thousand years ago. Going that path will lead to your doom."

"What do you suggest?"

"There is another means to breach the dimensional barrier; through me. We can bypass his syphon, but it will require your children to assume your true, human form, and you to assume all the power of the Invid for yourself, in order to confront Haydon."

"I must consider your proposal carefully."

At that point, even more alarms went off.

"Guys, I think we may not have time for that," Dana cried, looking at the sensor screens.

"Huh? What is it?"

"We've got Shadow Fighters entering the hive."

**Chapter Nine:**

"Sweet songs of youth...

the wise, the meeting of all wisdom...

To believe in the good in man..." - Oona, _Legend_ (sampled in "Loved by the Sun")

"General, we've got an emergency call coming in from the Moon!"

"Put it through," Fokker stated. Rolf Emerson appeared on the screen.

"Roy, I'm reading this data right, aren't I? The assault's been a success?"

"We have taken the entire area and are penetrating the hive itself, which means that we're probably less than an hour from total victory."

"I thought so - and that's where the emergency lies. Reinhardt's gone off his rocker. He's broadcasting to the fleet that Earth is lost, and he's instigated some sort of doomsday plan meant to guarantee that the Invid don't keep Earth - and cut us out of the command loop. He's claiming that he's operating on the orders of the Hunters, but they didn't order any such thing. I have a complete, uncensored, copy of their battle plan - something even Reinhardt wasn't cleared for. NOTHING was mentioned about the weapons he's ordered in motion, except that Rick & Lisa were forced to bring them, and Lisa's personal note to me was they'd mutiny, before they would obey any orders to use them."

"What are the weapons?"

"They're those old colony ships in orbit. They were turned into asteroid mining ore carriers, and are filled to overflowing with nickel-iron ore too irradiated to be processed into usable metal. They are going to be used as kinetic weapons on North America - each by itself is enough to kill every human on the planet with the after-effects of the impact, even before factoring in the radioactive fallout from the impacts!"

"That's fucking insane! Who would even order the building of such monstrosities?"

"The council would; you know, the political geniuses that thought they'd be safer on the SDF-3 than helping Anatole and me rebuild Earth, who thought T.R. Edwards' clone was the greatest military genius since Alexander, and were willing to sell a half-dozen sentient races into slavery for the promise of 'Galactic Peace in our Time'."

"Is there anything we can do? I doubt anything short of the Grand Cannon would stop them from reaching ground."

"I'm going to have to try to force a connection through to Vince & Jean. All normal comm channels to the fleet are locked out, probably to stop us from doing the very thing we are attempting. Keep the battle up. Is there any word from Freeman's group, since they followed Bernard's group into the hive?"

"No, but half of Bernard's group has emerged from the hive, and they took out the Invid commander that was leading the external defense. They've taken some casualties, but they appear to only be technical kills, not personnel."

"The ones still in the hive may be our only hope. That is, if they survive the Shadow Fighter assault. No one seems to have informed the incoming squadrons that we have people inside, and their orders are to kill anyone they find inside - ESPECIALLY if they appear human."

"Rolf, if I don't make it, shoot that bastard Reinhardt for me - preferably in some manner to allow for a slow, painful and certain death."

"I'll try, but there may be a long line ahead of me."

"Regardless of the choice I make, I must still discuss it with my children," the Regis said, solemnly. "Even if we become human, or evolve into the form like Ariel and Sera, what is to prevent the bloodshed from continuing from generation to generation?"

"If you choose this route, part of the price is traveling to another universe, across dimensional space - the place where Haydon believes he can rule as a creator deity. Together, only the Invid collective can face him as an equal, as he stole the life force of another universe's Invid to get that realm established, and has already expended much of that ill-gotten power in getting this far."

"Then, why did he manipulate this one?"

"He usurped his counterpart here, to leave that counterpart permanently sleeping in the core of Haydon IV, to intervene as part of a power struggle within his deific realm. He made a mistake - after his first victory, he was persuaded to share his victory with someone who found his actions abhorrent, and that one rebelled. Our struggle here has been, simply, a game of strategy between the two, with the fate of multiple universes - multiple Earths, multiple Invid, and all the rest - at stake. His opponent did the one thing he didn't expect, that has made all the difference - instead of making a lot of pieces to control on the board, he made a single special one - one that neither of them could control, and would fight to preserve their own world, in a manner Haydon could not predict."

"That would be you, I assume."

"Yes, though I really didn't fully understand it, until last year. But now, my path is clear. Together, Regis, you and I can end the shadows, once and for all. All it will take is for you to embrace a destiny of your own choosing, not the ones that the shadows of Protoculture or the shadows of mankind tell you are the only options."

"What of those who still attack us?"

"That can be taken care of. Uncle Scott, by this point you must realize that for me, military formalities are moot. But, you are still the commander of Vulcan Division. Go after Lancer & Sera, who have left to stop the Shadow Fighters trying to force their way here through the conventional transport tunnels of the hive. Use your rank to order the attackers to stop, if possible. Some of them may not listen, and of course some of them are AI drones that won't obey you anyway - but, you must try; if for any reason, to reduce the burden that Belmont may have later for having to fire on other humans."

"What about you?"

"I have someplace else to go; tell Mom and Dad that I love them."

"What is this?" the Regis exclaimed, sensing the onrushing kinetic weapons, too big to truly cloak. "What kind of madness has taken over those above?"

"Are those -" Dana asked.

"I'm not sure, but they appear to be kinetic weapons, meant to destroy the Earth, and the Invid along with it. Not even the Masters were that mad!"

"Noel, Dana, Marie, Zor, Angie..." Karen called out. "Take my hand - I need Noel & Dana's power, and the other two of you as an anchor, if we are to rush this faster than we intended. Regis, take my other hand, and awaken all your children on Earth at once - we must go!'

"What about this world?"

"That is what the extra power is for - we must depart Earth, as you normally would, but guide our path of departure to have the wake of your passing destroy the weapons. Once beyond the fleet, we make the final leap. Noel must be here to tether you to the Earth's biosphere, until that point, to allow all your children to follow, and to draw on Earth's own power center to sustain us through your transformation."

"What about me?" Alex asked.

"Get Lunk and Annie out of here in Marie's Beta, and get everyone you find along the way to follow you out, if you can make it in time. Noel should be able to shield the others through the hive's dissolution, but she'll be hard-pressed to protect four."

"I'll try."

The Regis called out telepathically to the entire world, not just to her scattered children, but to the humans on planet and in orbit, to let them know who truly was trying to kill them, and who in the end, was to save them.

"The final attack has begun; and a terrible error has been made, compounding all the errors both races have made. Know, Terrans, that as I leave with my people, that I save you from the attack of one of your own, gone mad with revenge, meant to destroy your world in a vain attempt to kill my people. Let this be a lesson to both our races - that the true end of this war comes about from the actions of those of Terran, Zentraedi, Tyrolean and Invid blood who put their love of each other ahead of blind loyalty to their own people, and in doing so, changed the world. The Invid will trouble this universe no longer, and if we meet in the future, let it be as equals, and as friends. We must not give in to the shadows of hatred again."

"Okay everyone, focus on me, NOW!" Karen shouted to the others, as the hive began to glow, and come apart reminiscent of the master computer program in an ancient sci-fi movie of the 1980s. The light grew brighter and brighter, forcing them to close their eyes, and even then could see the light through their eyelids. The sensory overload was such that, eventually, the only sense they had of anything, was that of their linked hands - and even then, eventually, Noel felt Karen slip away.

The light expanded, as arcs of light from around the world came together on Reflex Point, reforming into the energy phoenix that people swore to have seen arrive four years before, and that Zor Prime remembered that Zor had seen in his dying vision - only this time, Zor Prime felt himself PART of it, yet able to see it from above, as if watching as a million kilometer tall giant, watching from space floating alongside the Earth and Moon.

The phoenix rose from the surface, its turbulence knocking nearly everything flying over North America out of control, intercepting the kinetic weapons before they reached the atmosphere, and vaporizing them into so much dust - while the radioactives within transmuted into stable isotopes. It continued from there, to surround the SDF-4 class vessel _Izumo_, from where the orders to launch the weapons had come. The ship seemed to melt away from the onslaught of energy, and its weapons detonated harmlessly - at least to the phoenix. The weapons had been panic-fired at point blank range to the fleet, and destroyed several other REF ships, and released an energy pulse that knocked out multiple systems on everything that wasn't protected by Earth's magnetic field or being behind the moon, for several million miles. At a range several times the distance of the Moon, the tail of the phoenix snapped, faster than light, from the Earth to its body, and it disappeared in a flash visible to the naked eye from the Martian and Jovian colonies.

As the light faded on Earth, all the Invid were gone, save Marlene & Sera. Whatever Invid mecha had been left behind in flight, fell to Earth, shattering on impact, empty. A few of the hives, like the captured one in Florida, were still standing - but their brains and all their Invid were missing. On the other hand, not a single Flower of Life had been taken, leaving the collective sentience that Haydon had instilled into the plants as bewildered as the typical human civilian. For a few moments, the whole solar system seemed to stop, trying to puzzle out what had just occurred.


	21. Book Five, Part Eighteen

**Part Eighteen: Worlds Without End**

**Chapter One:**

"It was hard to believe, at first, that the Invid were gone for good, regardless of what Karen might have promised. It was even harder sorting out the mess that was left behind. After all, the SDF-3 was missing, and the designated alternate command ship was commanded by someone that had been chosen for political reliability, not ability - and he snapped, ordering the destruction of Earth after the battle was WON, out of fear the Invid would escape again. In fact, the Invid saved us from him as they left, destroying him and his doomsday weapons. What few survivors from his clique were found, stated that there had been sealed orders to destroy the Invid at all cost (at least, that's what Reinhardt told them - something that is still argued to this day). As soon as the rescue operations were over, the arguing between the Hunter-loyal and political factions began in earnest, made worse by politicians trying to take command from the safety of Tyrol with no knowledge of what the conditions here actually were. It was, in the end, the sheer idiocy of those orders that eventually united the factions against them." - Scott Freeman, _Memories of the Madness_

Colonel Scott Freeman was glad to see sunlight through the hole he'd just blown in the rubble. Most of the Reflex Point central hive had dissolved and left with the Invid, leaving the lowest levels (with the transport tubes) to be buried by falling debris of parts that didn't leave, as well as material swept up, then dropped, by the departure. Behind him was his wife in her Beta, a number of his subordinates and some civilians as passengers with her. Behind her, was an Invid Battloid, several others in Cyclones, and the Shadow Fighters that had made it into the hive. Convincing them to obey his orders to stand down had been a minor ordeal of itself. To him, the sunset was the most beautiful sight of his life.

"Well, Colonel; what do we do now?" the lead Shadow pilot asked.

"Once we get out of this hole, Tomlinson, we go overland to the Earth forces staging point, where you and your men get to talk to the General about your orders."

"Colonel, do you think, orders or no orders, I'd have brought my men down here if I knew Reinhardt was going to drop a planet-killer on the hive?"

"Not likely, though some people I knew in the bad old days would have if they thought they had enough time to get out of the atmosphere before impact. Most of those types got cashiered in the Edwards scandals. But, I will need you to help gather up all the people from the orbital assault, so we can explain why those on the ground were cut out of your comm channels, and that the jerks in orbit had no intent of telling you that they weren't expecting you to come back. Face it, most of the Saturn attack wing were told not to believe anything they heard from the ground, supposedly because we might have been compromised by the Invid."

"If you had been about any other officer, I'd probably have followed that order myself, Colonel - but I served with you and was willing to take the risk that you were you."

"All the more reason to have you break the news."

"You just better be able to support what you've told me."

"I will, if the sensors back at base camp survived that EM pulse."

About that time, a blue Beta walked up to them. The pilot called to them over his externals.

"Colonel, my radio is shot, along with most my sensors. Did you get my people out?"

"They're in my wife's Beta - at least, those that didn't follow you out. Are those two pilots okay?"

"Yes, the only thing hurt is their pride, and their mecha. Marlene's with them."

"Good. Go get them, and meet up with us for the walk back out. We'll be stopping when possible to pick up wounded."

"Speaking of wounded," Alex piped in from his Cyclone, "Noel's in rough shape from helping Karen and the Regis. She's got a fever of 40C and is too weak to stand. If anyone's got a spare canteen or two, she needs it to cool off. Dana's not much better. Marie was the tail-end anchor, and was affected the least - even so, she's piloting the Beta against my medical recommendation. Even Zor passed out from the strain."

"You heard the doctor, men. Now, Alex, lead us back to where you left those wounded on the way in, and we'll go from there."

They managed to make it back into camp several hours after dark. Freeman, Bernard & Tomlinson reported in to the command tent, where Fokker as already sitting with Harrington and the other surviving ground force commanders.

"You three are the last to arrive. I gather you've heard what those things were in orbit, by now."

"Yeah - we had a front row seat, watching them on the Regis' own sensors. I hate to say it, but she saved us."

"She didn't have to, so why?"

"First of all, two of her daughters had fallen in love with humans, and stayed behind. Second, she realized that she'd become the very thing she hated most, and pretty much left in shame - destroying those monstrosities in orbit was her way of atonement."

"Where did the Invid go?"

"Who knows? Karen was providing the destination, and left with them. All she said was that they were leaving this universe entirely, so that we and the Invid never have to be in conflict again."

"Well, that's one less worry. Have any of you managed to contact the fleets in orbit, or the moon?"

"No, we were hoping you had. Our communications have been down from damage, and we were hoping yours might have survived from being underground."

"My wife's Beta probably has, but we don't have any of the security codes and locations for the contacts. Tomlinson was unable to contact orbit, because his coordinates for calling in apparently either aren't occupied anymore, or they have the same problems we do - but you'd think the ship systems would have better shielding. And, there's no way to transfer the encryption over to one of our machines. The bastards changed the encryption to shut us out of being able to communicate with the fleet - deliberately."

"Yeah, we figured that out. The last thing we heard from Rolf was that Reinhardt was doing a fair imitation of a cross between Ahab & Queeg, and had ordered the arrest of Rolf and anyone that obeyed Rolf over him - all the while screaming about how the invasion had failed, and the final option was mandated."

"Why didn't he just call it the 'Final Solution'? It would have been more accurate to history."

"If it wasn't so deadly serious, I'd laugh at that joke. We're got a few magnification systems we've modified into digital telescopes in the last few hours, and what we're seeing isn't all that good."

"Is the fleet gone?"

"Worse - a quarter of the fleet is gone, and the rest appears to be in two groups, taking occasional shots at each other."

"How the hell did that happen?"

"How else? One side's obeying Rolf, the other's obeying whatever lunatics are still following Reinhardt's last orders - his ship was in dead center of the Invid departure, by the way, so he's no longer an issue we have to deal with directly. However, he apparently ordered the destruction of Emerson's Nearside communications array, to further stifle attempts to counter his orders."

"Have any of the mecha forces from the fleet reported in?"

"A few - too few, really. Their gravity combat training was apparently lacking severely. We've ordered them into a separate camp, and all mecha larger than Cyclones are under enforced shutdown, to prevent the madness in orbit from infecting the people here. However, a lot of them already know that those doomsday weapons were launched, and are none too happy for being left to die."

"That's something we should be able to use to our benefit. Now, let me tell you all about what went down in the hive. Bernard, you got there first, so you start with how your team got invited to the party..."

"...and, my husband went to order Tomlinson's group to halt their progress, as I'm sure Sera and Lieutenant Belmont would have used lethal force to stop them, if necessary," Marie continued, reporting to the other officers about what occurred after both Scotts had left. "Karen told the Regis of the alternate plan for getting the Invid to safety, but to do it and stop the kinetic attack meant that it would tax both beyond their normal strength. Literally, every Invid left not in human form had to be reabsorbed by the Regis, their life force used to boost the departure. Karen, Dana, Noel and myself had to act as conduits for that energy, as it would have taken too long for the journey at hand. Had the Invid simply wanted to leave, to go through Ranaath's Star as they originally planned, such additional speed wouldn't have been needed - but they were using a talent Karen discovered in her presumed death at Optera to directly cross dimensions."

"Ranaath's star?"

"A singularity near Haydon IV, that Haydon believed to have the ability to create a stable wormhole to another dimension under the right circumstances. An energy being could make the one-way trip through it, but coherent matter could not even attempt to make it through, unless the wormhole had been forced open by such a being first. That was part of his master plan - to have the Invid forge the way in, then his consciousness would have awakened, and he would have attempted to take Haydon IV through in some form, in order to become a god-like being on the other side; Karen believed that the Invid would have been used up and cast aside by Haydon, in the process. By making a direct jump to another dimension, using Karen as a catalyst, they would bypass this fate - and leave Haydon to sleep where he couldn't fuck with sentient life for his own benefit - pardon my speech, but that's about as best as I can describe the crap Haydon's done to all of us, not to mention the Sentinels races."

"Why did they expend the power to go to orbit, first?"

"Well, if they didn't, it's possible they could have accidentally ripped the atmosphere from the planet, or taken a chunk of the planet. Besides, they had to take out the weapons before they left, and I think that the Invid effectively converted the mass of the weapons and the ships in their way into additional energy for the trip; at minimum, they absorbed the Protoculture. By that time, I was no longer in contact with Karen or the Regis."

"Is it possible that the ships weren't destroyed, only taken into the departing Invid?"

"I don't know. But, if they were, I wouldn't want to be in Reinhardt's shoes. I was her best friend; but frankly, Karen always frightened me a bit, and had the capacity of frightening the hell out of me - like in the Second Battle of Optera. Any humans absorbed into the Invid would most likely find themselves on trial for their lives. The lucky ones would be reborn wherever the Invid go - those found wanting, well... I get the feeling that in comparison, Edwards got off easy at Optera."

With that, the debriefing took a break, to let everyone recover from the day's events.

The break ended up lasting till past dawn, as nearly all parties involved nodded out from fatigue and unwinding stress as soon as they got in a semi-resting position, half of them unintentionally. The junior officers actually made it a point to make sure that their superiors would be in such a position, as there wasn't any immediate danger, and they could manage while all the colonels and generals got their beauty sleep. It is, after all, easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission (or, for that matter, FORCE the officers to get the rest they needed).

As the commanders woke themselves up by contemplating what they'd do to the people that let them fall asleep, they found out that the situation in orbit hadn't changed much. On the other hand, the techs had managed to pull the command radio Scott had installed in Marie's Shadow Beta, and hook it into an uplink system that had been still in storage and appeared to still be functional.

"Any signals worth mentioning, yet?" Fokker asked.

"A lot of open-channel posturing, sir...Both sides have stopped firing, but are still demanding that the other side place themselves under arrest. Eventually, one side will probably try something stupid like a decapitation raid."

"Who appears to be in charge up there?"

"General Grant of Neptune Logistics Division appears to be in charge of the ships that are answering to General Emerson on the Moon; they are using a ship-to-ship relay by parking some ships in lunar orbit to get a signal from Farside."

"And, on the other side of the fleet?"

"There doesn't be anyone higher than a rear admiral or major general on the other side, but they appear to be citing orders directly from Tyrol. Granted, pardon the pun, they are combat officers, not support."

"There's another wrinkle I don't think that the council isn't considering," Scott added. "Rolf's the legitimate commander of Solar System Forces."

"On what grounds?"

"Among other things, the Hydra Protocols. Any authority the Council on Tyrol had here, left the Solar System with the Invid. On top of that, he was Leonard's official successor prior to the Invid arrival, even if the idiots in the Eastern Hemisphere didn't want to accept it - God rest their souls. Until a new, Terran, council is elected, he's in charge under martial law, by every relevant article in the UEG Charter and Constitution."

"Why ruin the beauty of an idea by discussing its legality?"

"Didn't Theodore Roosevelt say that to his Cabinet?"

"Something like that. But, Teddy typically had the best interests of America at heart. I doubt the same could be said for those failed diplomats that haven't faced an election in almost 20 years, but consider themselves elected officials."

"So, are we all in agreement that Emerson is the legitimate authority, in the absence of an elected government chosen by the current populace of Earth?" Roy looked around; everyone there, all the officers in North America over the rank of commander, nodded in agreement - even the ones that were from the squadrons that had originally launched from the council-loyal ships. "Then, let's add our voice to the 'debate' in orbit. Raise one of the ships in Grant's force."

"Roy, perhaps I should be the one to initiate the contact. After all, as far as most of the fleet knows, you've been dead twenty-five years. Considering Vince is your brother-in-law, I don't know how he'll react to seeing you and Claudia among the living - even if clones. Hell, even I don't know how Karen managed to clone you in a way you actually regained the memories from before your deaths. Lang even grilled me, trying to figure that one out, since Karen & Marie wouldn't answer him."

"Good point. By the way, Karen said it was scanning the brain of my frozen corpse, for the most part, but also something involving genetic memory - something Earth scientists dismissed decades ago, but Tyroleans treated as gospel - I think Zor's memories recovered after being dumped into the lap of the Southern Cross is a perfect example of who was right in the end, though he still had to get a more complete brain scan downloaded into him. Even with that, I don't think that was the whole answer."

"Colonel, the connection is ready."

"Okay. Highlander Six Actual calling _Ark Angel_."

"We read you Colonel, loud and clear."

" Is General Grant available for a conference call with the Earth Forces command staff?"

"One moment... Yes, he will be coming online shortly." The screen shifted, and Vince appeared.

"Freeman, you made it! Last I heard, you'd entered the hive, right before all hell broke loose."

"Yeah, it was an adventure. Zor Prime and Karen thought they could talk the Regis into leaving, but in the end, we only helped her reach a conclusion that Lang's nephew and the Regis' own daughters had nearly convinced her of, already. Karen left with the Invid, and you can probably lay the blame for Reinhardt's timely demise at her feet - wherever those feet are now. Last thing she said was that she was helping the Invid to another dimension, where they'd never trouble humanity again. Oh, and get this - according to her, the Invid used to be human, thousands of years ago. They and the Masters can trace their history back to Earth, and some coastal societies whose remains have been submerged over a hundred meters down since the last Ice Age. The reason why the Invid weren't human when the Masters encountered them can be explained by one name-"

"Let me guess - Haydon."

"Right on the first try. The bastard was manipulating all the races we encountered, in some mad plan to attain something like godhood. It almost worked, too - probably would have, without Karen. She claimed to Marie that some other-dimensional being took offense at what Haydon was doing, and to stop him, created her as a free agent, since he couldn't stop Haydon alone."

"Are you in charge down there?"

"Not exactly... I'm third or fourth on the totem pole, depending if you're looking at the chain of command here at Reflex Point, or planet-wide."

"Where's your superiors, then?"

"There's a bit of a story behind that... they thought it would be best if I initiated the contact with you. You might want to get Jean with you, before you speak with them."

"She's here."

"Good. Jean, you know how, before the SDF-3 left Earth, Karen and Marie were known to do a number of things with Protoculture technology that, well, you, I, Emil or the Hunters would never have approved of, if they'd asked first? Hell, they did it again with Lynn-Kyle back on Tyrol."

"Yes, what did they do this time?"

"Actually, it's what they did as an engagement present for Rick & Lisa."

"I always suspected something; Vince, you better sit down. I think I got a glimpse of their 'present'', back then, and always hoped I'd just imagined it."

"After that near-fiasco, they were made the commanders of the secret defense base code named Tisiphone, but moved to Fortess Gloval after there was a reactor accident that contaminated that base. I'm surprised that it was kept secret so well from the REF - most of the Earth found out when the Invid invaded. Now that Vince is sitting, here they are."

"Hi, little brother," Claudia said, as she stepped into the camera's field of view, followed by her husband a couple steps behind. "So, I hear you're a General now."

"C-Claudia... it IS you. So, you really were at the wedding shower in Vegas."

"Yes, I was, although I never dreamed that Marie was crazy enough to expose us publicly like that. As it was, only Scott and Rick found out, though I suspected Jean suspected what happened, and Rick managed to convince Lisa she'd only imagined her glimpse of us. I'm sorry to hear about Bowie being on the SDF-3; I met him when he spent his honeymoon at Tisiphone, and had him promise not to say anything to you about me until Roy and I had a chance to break it to you personally."

"We've not given up hope for them yet; after all, there is plenty of reason to believe it's just another mis-programmed fold, just like all the others that have occurred with that class of ship. Do you and Roy have any children?"

"Two; our son Rick is seven years old, and we have a two year old daughter named Samantha. When can you come down to visit?"

"Right now, we're a little too occupied up here."

"We heard. We have two messages for you to pass on to your opposition. The first is the text of the Hydra Protocols and the UEG Compact. You should be able to figure out the parts we have marked, that show where the council faction are in violation of both.

"The second is that it is the unanimous opinion of all force commanders on Earth that Reinhardt's actions were illegal, if not completely treasonous, and were the result of orders given to him by the Plenipotentiary Council on Tyrol - an organization that has no authority in the Solar System to issue orders of any kind, and has no authority beyond that of the diplomatic mission to the Robotech Masters of Tyrol - a mission that ceased to have any purpose when the Masters were destroyed over Earth, and technically was moot even at the point of their arrival, since the Masters were not there. Any actions against those loyal to the legitimate commander of Solar System forces, Rolf Emerson, will be considered an attack on Earth.

"And, when we say that it was unanimous decision of all commanders on Earth, that includes ALL of the commanders of the forces on Earth that arrived with Mars, Jupiter & Saturn Divisions. There are a lot of very unhappy REF personnel that are here, that want to have words with those that ordered their deaths, and those that continue to obey illegal orders from that command, as those kinetic abominations never had any chance of actually killing the Invid. The Sentinels Aid Mission proved several times, last decade, that the Invid could evacuate much more quickly than those weapons require to be launched and delivered."

"Is that all?"

"You might want to informally remind them that, even after combat losses, the number of space-capable mecha on Earth is about three times the normal mecha complement of the ships of their force, and we know that they suffered great losses in the space battle with the Invid, even before factoring in that sixty percent of their complement was part of the force that attacked the Earth - and survivors of those forces are on OUR side, now, after they were betrayed by Reinhardt and the council. Hell, the command logs from some of the deployed units indicate that he declared the final attack on the hive a failure and launched the planet killers BEFORE that attack even ENTERED the hive, and if not for my subordinates stopping them from interfering with the Invid abdication from Earth, probably would have succeeded in their attack. And, we have ways of getting the truth to their crews, that they can't stop. It's pretty apparent that the majority of those ships' crews didn't know what their superiors were really doing. Attached to the two formal messages are a list of the unit commanders who have signed on to the opinion."

Vince called up the documents on-screen. "Rear Admiral, Chief of Staff and commander of Earth's ground-based space defenses; Sis, you've not done too bad for yourself, either."

"It's really just assuming the duties that were Emerson's, under Leonard. Rolf split the titles and duties that Leonard held between himself and Roy, to allow him to be the Supreme Commander from the safety of the Moon, while letting Roy command the actual military forces we had on Earth, such as they were. Ironically, it put me like Lisa - higher in rank than my husband, but technically under his command in an actual combat situation. We really didn't get everything ironed out until we went public, a couple months before the Invid arrived. Prior to that point, Roy outranked me from our relative positions at Tisiphone, but our commissions were classified."

"I hope this will change a few minds, but I don't know..."

"Vince, point out the obvious to them," Roy finally spoke up. "The old maxim about the difference between real commanders and armchair generals."

"That being?"

"You forget already, in your position? Armchair generals discuss tactics; real commanders discuss logistics. They have no logistical support to speak of, and I doubt you'll let them obtain other sources."

"Indeed."

While the documentation won a few ship commanders over, they were stuck where they were, and had to act otherwise since attempting to leave their fleet would result in their being fired on. Instead, those commanders were asked to try to sneak the information to other ships, to potentially foment dissent elsewhere in the fleet. Of course, the other fleet was trying similar tactics going the other direction, but the horror of what had almost occurred to Earth made people in Grant's fleet less susceptible to changing their mind. In fact, the primary result of the attempts to infiltrate Grant's fleet were a rash of "airlock accidents" involving the provocateurs, which kept the security forces investigating the deaths rather than actually arresting those people before they said something to provoke vigilante justice. The growing confusion among the opposition meant that such vigilantism was not happening there, though there appeared to be drumhead courts martial in progress if someone distributing the information was caught.

After a week, it became apparent that the council faction fleet would either have to start a fight, or retreat for resupply, and it was likely heads would roll if the latter occurred. Something had to be done, and quickly. Now that she'd recovered from her overexertion, Noel was quickly tapped to be the transportation for the assault they hoped would prevent that larger battle.

"I'm not too wild about this idea," Noel fretted on the side of her bed. "I'm still not up to full speed from the whole Marlene thing, let alone helping Karen out."

"I'm not either, but you're everyone's best bet," Alex replied, massaging her shoulders. "The sensors of the REF ships are specially calibrated to pick up the shadow devices, not to mention that they all use optical motion sensors as backup. They really don't make you invisible after all - just neutral to most sensors - they paint the mecha black to make them harder to spot in space, but that doesn't help at short range. The only way to get on board without triggering a space battle is with you - unless Karen brought back a cloaking device and transporter from her dimensional jaunt from Optera."

"Unfortunately, all she brought back were her two children and a few stories about the dimensional-hopping couple that gave her shelter, that apparently lived in a fantastic world that used a mix of magic and relic tech. They may have been to a _Trek_ universe, but they didn't share anything they might have brought back. Though, they did tell her that, near as they could tell, most universes they visited were fictional places in other dimensions - the implications of that are a bit mind-boggling."

"An author actually used that in his writing - Heinlein, and his 'Universe as Myth' hypothesis. He ended up merging all his writing time lines that way, by the time of his death."

"I should have known you'd know some instance of it; but, what does that mean for us?"

"I prefer to think we make our own stories - if we are someone else's characters, it's because our story echoes across the dimensions; we are the cause - that someone writes our story is the effect."

"Enough of this philosophy crap - it's more Karen's style, anyway. How am I supposed to even get you all on board a ship I've never been on, before? All ships of that type look so much alike that I can't even guarantee that we won't end up the wrong place, or just not arrive from the destination being too vague to leave. You should have never had me read McCaffrey after finding out I can teleport; all those accidents of people going _between_ on their dragons still make me nervous, when I think about them."

"They were _meant_ to scare you; until we find out more about how your abilities actually work, I think we all want you to not 'port around without thinking about it. But, we think we know enough to make this work. We spent the last three days finding someone in our fleet who has a close acquaintance of some sort on the command ship, and bringing them here. We then had Dana, of all people, make contact with the target person with her telepathy, using our person as a conduit."

"Dana? She couldn't be that powerful."

"While you've had to fight to recover your powers, the last year, hers have been expanding greatly, and Karen had worked with her to expand them. She's probably at least as powerful as you were in the last days of Monument - especially as you were when that fragment of Karen's persona surfaced. I just wouldn't want to risk teleporting with her any time soon. On the other hand, you're now at least as powerful as Karen was when she was with the Sentinels. I've been talking with Marie, mostly while you were recovering in the field hospital. Karen teleported from Tyrol to Haydon IV, taking Marie with her, and back, within a four-hour period. Dana MAY be capable of lunar-range teleports right now, but hasn't attempted anything longer than inter-continental, and has only done that distance twice. Granted, you have about as much experience, but you've got the greater raw power and general experience across the board."

"Then, I guess it's up to me. When are we leaving?"

"Dana's going to help you contact the target person, after lunch. After that, departure will be as soon as that person can find a place to go to, that will allow you to teleport in our team. Don't worry - the two of us are the reserve and medical backup, once we get up there. Dana's team of Cyclone marines can handle all the rough stuff, and if any psychic shenanigans are needed, Dana can handle that too. Relax; I'm not working all this tension loose for you to build it right back up again."

Twelve hours later, the crisis in orbit was defused. Dana had stormed the bridge with no casualties, and they quickly turned the ship's weapons on the ships of the other leaders of the council faction, destroying their hyperspace antennae to cut them off from Tyrol, then switching to propulsion systems as the earlier converts joined in. Casualties were light, though Dana had to teleport a fire team in an assault on one ship's bridge, and it took killing half the bridge personnel to stop the ship from causing all kinds of chaos, as the ship's commander tried to take it on a suicide run on Farside Base when it became apparent that most of the rest of the fleet had stood down. Luckily, the engineering section was much more understanding, when it came time to stop the ship from impacting.

The means of handling the prisoners was actually suggested by Commander Marie Phillips. The old ALuCE lunar base, which had been manned only with a skeleton crew since the Invid arrived as to not attract Invid attention, was only marginally habitable. But, it was a far sight better than it had been when Marie had been stuck there as an ASC major, commanding the thousands of people by default after all the officers above her were injured or had cracked under the strain. All it needed was some raw materials, consumables, and a lot of manpower, and using it as a place of temporary exile for those now labeled as mutineers and potential war criminals, would get that taken care of. It only had sublight communications, no weapons that hadn't already been scavenged for Farside, and all the vehicles (other than cargo lifters incapable of operating more than a kilometer from the base) had been removed as well. No guards would be needed, and if the prisoners wanted to live, they'd have to get the base back into shape. They would be allowed to keep their uniforms and rank, until tried, and were allowed to set up their own chain of command.

Granted, these new residents of the ALuCE penal colony would be looking forward to their "rescue" by their superiors at Tyrol, and the destruction of the "traitors" that imprisoned them. But, they also understood that getting another base on the Moon was in everyone's best interest - especially since they believed that their rescuers would destroy Farside Base from orbit, when they came, and they would need a replacement for "defending" Earth (never mind those same leaders had been more than willing to destroy Earth, rather than see it controlled by aliens, or side with someone outside their faction). But, it took care of several issues at once.

It was not until the first day of May, that a full, in-person, conference could be held to completely reorganize the leadership of Earth, establish new battle plans to defend Earth against Tyrolean Council aggression, and to finally begin searching for the SDF-3.

**Chapter Two:**

"The orbital crisis defused, we were finally able to get to the real business of reconstruction and reorganization. Most of the command structure had been rebuilt during the orbital stand-off, but we still had to formalize the matter, before establishing the provisionary military council. Once we had the council, then we could begin to gather the delegates for actually establishing a civilian government, which itself was a pretty daunting task. As it was, most of the Americas hadn't seen any sort of government over the level of a town hall in four years, unless you counted the Invid or their collaborators. It was a good thing that representative government had deep roots, even in South America, so that people actually knew what elections were, and stepped up quickly to restore representative democracy (even with a little corruption here and there, which about was to be expected).

"The idea of a new United Earth Government, with the primary nations being such states as Liberia, South Africa, Venezuela, Cambodia, Argentina and The Congo, would have blown the minds of any pre-2000 historian, given those nations' rather suspect history in the 20th Century. This was especially true when you consider that these nations chose to let a still-unorganized North America play host and assume a leadership role, not from the firepower massed there, but from recognition that if anyone would make sure that the recovery process and redistribution of non-military hardware for reconstruction was handled fairly, it would be the Americans. After all, in the wake of the Zentraedi, it was the remnants of the USA and Canada, together with the SDF-1, that helped other areas recover, to the extent of slowing their own recovery. And, when the roles were reversed, and America was devastated by the Masters, Japan, Europe and the neo-Soviet abandoned those that had been their saviors for their own ends - and ended up being destroyed by the Invid. All the remaining nations, and fractions of the pre-Invid ones, weren't about to make that mistake again."

- Scott Freeman, _Memories of the Madness_

The streets of abandoned New Columbus were somewhat creepy. Most of the buildings still standing were covered with plant growth that, under normal circumstances, should have taken several decades, if not more than a century, to grow. It had been an experiment of the Regis, to see if nature alone could erase the works of man, and rather oddly included equally plant-encrusted wrecks of human and Invid mecha where they had fell in battle, back on that awful April Fool's Day after the Invid arrival. Also scattered in the ruins were relics of the battle of two weeks prior, though in these cases, any human casualties had already been removed.

But, under the plants, the buildings were mostly intact, and it was in what was once one of the finest restaurants of New Columbus, that the leaders of the Solar System had gathered for a combination dinner, promotion ceremony and planning session for the reestablishment of order. Now that the Invid were gone, their former lackeys had much to answer for, and the last thing any of the REF wanted was to allow those traitors to humanity to continue in their control of their fellow man.

Rolf stood up at the head of the main table, on Earth for the first time since the year before the Invid arrived. "Gentlemen; ladies... To Absent Friends..."

"To Absent Friends," everyone replied, standing and toasting those missing and dead.

"Now, in their absence, we must take on roles we never thought we'd have to take. Personally, I am having to serve the role that would normally fall to a civilian leader, and will do so only as long as needed. Once the new civilian government is established, I will take my long-overdue retirement." He turned to the men and woman on his right.

"Vince, Roy; the two of you will continue as my lead generals, at full general line officer rank. Vince, you will be in charge of the logistics of our reconstruction, from the retooling of the Gallant vehicle plants to the vehicles we'll need for construction and agriculture, to the transfer of materials between Earth and the colonies. At this point, logistics is too important to not be considered part of the line of command. You will also send out diplomatic missions to the outsystem colonies, to show them proof of the Invid departure, and the crimes of the Tyrolean council. Hopefully, we will win some of them over before the council gets any bright ideas of launching a war against us. Roy, you will be in charge of system defense, since I will have to step out of that role to serve as temporary head of state. Claudia will continue in her current role, but at the rank of Vice Admiral." Roy now turned to those on his left.

"Scott, Dar - you two are being promoted to actual Brigadier rank, and brevet rank one higher. Dar, you will be in charge of the colonial defense fleets for the outer solar system, and Scott will be in charge of Western Hemisphere defense forces. Your counterparts for African & Asian forces weren't able to make it to this meeting, but they are getting their promotions delivered to them simultaneous to this meeting. Zho's absence is due to an interesting report of possible Tyrolean or Zentraedi activity in Indochina; however unlikely, one would expect that survivors of either two groups would become active again, now that they don't have to hide from overwhelming Invid force. The Indian Ocean and African commands are providing him backup. Harrington will be your subordinate for South America; it would be his command outright, if not for the distrust of fleet forces prevalent there, so you get to figurehead for him."

"How come he's not here?" Scott asked.

"He's not here, simply, because one of us had to stay on duty for this meeting - but he's getting his own private ceremony and brevet brigadier promotion tomorrow - not to mention a send-off dinner from his fellow commanders, off the same menu as we're having tonight."

"Now, for the 'children's table'..." Rolf joked, drawing a few stares. "Commander Bernard, bring your officers forward."

"Yes, sir."

"I apologize for the humor, but your group has distinguished itself far beyond what anyone could have expected of you. Unfortunately, that means that you will be rewarded for your excellence by having to deal with the worst of those you had to confront on the way here. Of all of us, you have the most experience dealing with the human traitors that undermined our defense, and the marauders that preyed off their fellow man, either as Invid quislings or outright banditry. Frankly, I'd probably be more understanding with the ones who worked with the Invid, as not all of those did so completely of their own volition, as your report on Jon Wolfe shows. I've already talked with Princess Sera; she's willing to help you identify those she'd dealt with personally, and part of the 'Democracy Tour' we have arranged will include a Yellow Dancer concert at each stop, so Commander Belmont will be there with you, as will the Tylers. The rest of your team has the option of leaving service, traveling with you, or only being present at specific stops, but if they choose the last, they'll be required to perform other duties when not traveling with you. You can discuss it with them after we're done here, Colonel Bernard. I'd congratulate you on your latest promotion, though I'm not sure you'll consider it something to be congratulated about, after the next few weeks."

"Thank you, sir. But, what about the SDF-3?"

"In two months, if we've still not heard from them, we'll send the _Ark Angel_ out in a search pattern along the flight path of the fleet. According to our best scientists, it will take eight months of short folds to cover all the intervening space in short hops that will allow us to cover the entire path with sensors, while staying within the range of the backup communications gear of the SDF-3. That forecast also includes the time to check any close star systems to that path, that they might detour towards if they had issues after a misfold. We should be able to find them, if they are on that route, and are still capable of transmitting."

With that, the room went quiet, and most conversation the rest of the meal was at barely louder than whispering tones. In its absence, the SDF-3 loomed larger than ever.

Manhattan was the natural jump-off point for the rehabilitation of the Americas. It was still relatively intact, it still was civilized, it had an intact fusion power plant (albeit one in dire need of four years of backlogged maintenance to get back to full capacity), and the residents had no love for the Invid. Indeed, after Bernard's group destroyed the downtown hive, all but the least of what few collaborators were in the New York area were rounded up, tried, and executed - quite literally defenestrated for their crimes from the former restaurant atop one of the World Trade Center towers.

Over three weeks had passed he was last here, and Scott Bernard was still a bit unsettled by all that had occurred in the interval. He had gone from being a survivor of a doomed attack, leading a band of freedom fighters on a seemingly hopeless mission, to being in charge of what amounted to a traveling war crimes commission. In the process, he'd become one of the top-ranking officers on Earth - and he wasn't even twenty-five years old, if you don't count the over 5 year he lost to foldspace time dilations going to and from Tyrol, that current and future space travelers no long would experience. What few people he knew from childhood that were his chronological age, were now pushing thirty on Mars, with children in elementary school, while he looked like he should barely be out of high school (and of course his always having looked younger than his age played further in this disparity). When he heard that his dead fiancee's family was aboard Grant's ship, though, he suddenly felt that this mission was not all that bad, as opposed to having to face those people who were once going to be his in-laws.

Accompanying him on the return to Manhattan were Lancer, Sera, Marlene, Alex, Noel, and two long-time members of Highlander, the Armanas. Todd Armana was a native of the city, and his family trust was still the owner of record of several blocks of land in the now-abandoned areas of the island, as well as several condominiums in the occupied area. One of them, technically, was even his and Lynn's official civilian residence, even if they hadn't been home since March 2031. As such, he was likely to be an asset in discussions with the local government, despite his tendency to put his foot in his mouth in casual conversation. Also, as war heroes once part of the fabled Skull Squadron, but Todd & Lynn would be big draws in recruitment efforts for the Recovery Bureau, for both its reconstruction and police units, since most of the older military personnel would be going into reserve or retired status, and the younger ones needed massive retraining to be used on Earth in any capacity.

They set down at the former JFK Airport, which had last seen use as the home base for Lancer's Southern Cross C.D.F.C. unit 6 years earlier, before it was caught up in the Masters' War, and its member pilots used to fill the losses in the T.A.F & T.A.S.C. With the loss of the aircraft, the jet pack troops had relocated to the main city, and that had led to the construction of the Harlem air base that the Invid had destroyed (and Todd had as a top priority for reconstruction). Scott & Lancer had brought a Shadow Legios, repainted in the blues of Scott's old mecha, while Alex & Noel had another Shadow Legios still sporting its standard colors. Marlene and Ariel rode with the Armanas, in one of the VIP transports that Dana's band of refugees had liberated from Mexico City five years before. Another C-33 transport and a Horizon-T made up the rest of their group, along with several hundred support personnel and supplies for the mission. One of the Horizon bunkers was set up for cargo, the other as a portable command post, and the Horizon-T would leave both there, and get a new pair for each future stop.

Waiting for their arrival were two electric hover-limousines, with several of the former resistance, now provisional city councilmen.

"Lancer!" Simon called from beside the lead limousine. "Welcome back to the Big Apple."

"Nice to see you too, Simon. How have you and your colleagues been doing, since we left?"

"Repairs are already underway on the old United Nations complex. We've formed an initial election committee, and we hope to have precinct representatives and mayoral candidates by the time General Emerson arrives to set up his office, and the elections in time for our new mayor to appoint our representatives to Emerson's constitutional convention. But, frankly, I wish you hadn't talked me into this, old pal, because it's it's a lot easier directing actors than interviewing politicians. At least actors tend to have brains. Dealing with those who actually WANT public office is like herding cats."

"Really? You've finally realized that, after all these years of treating your dancers like sheep?"

"Funny, Lance - and you better not joke about what lonely shepherds do with their flock."

"You said it, not me." As if on cue, Sera and Marlene finally made it over from the transport.

Simon looked at Sera, apparently recognizing that he'd seen her before, but not where. "Who's your friend, Lancer? She wasn't with you last month, but I know I've seen her before, somewhere."

"Uhhh... Lancer? Can you handle this?" She stepped behind Lancer & Scott, in case Simon and the others reacted poorly.

"Brace yourself, Simon. You have seen her before, but it's probably the last place you'd think. Remember that fuchsia Invid Battloid that was in town last month?"

"You're joking, right? Tell me that's a joke..."

"'Afraid not. Simon, meet my fiancee - Sera, formerly First Princess of the Invid on Earth, now one of the last two known Invid on Earth. She stayed behind when the rest left, because she'd fallen in love with me - in fact, she saved my life when her brother, the pilot of that other Battloid from last month, nearly killed me. As to how we met, it's a long story - preferably related over drinks later tonight. The short version is that she fell in love with me at first sight, last year, and it took until Reflex Point for me to figure out the attraction was mutual."

"Okay, this is a bit hard to swallow, but I'll believe you. Who is the other Invid that stayed?"

"You've already met her;" Noel piped in. "Marlene here, or more accurately, Princess Ariel, was the first Invid to convert to human form. She was considered a failed prototype when she was inserted into our group to spy on us, and ended up believing she was human, right up until Sera told her the truth last month - here in New York, as a matter of fact. Between the two, they convinced the Regis to go with my sister, and leave Earth - and save it from those psychos from Tyrol that were going to try to sterilize the planet, in order to kill the Invid."

"Where is your sister, now?"

"I don't know. She said they were leaving this universe, entirely; whatever that means. Granted, she was conceived during a fold that ended up in an alternate time line, before Mom and Dad ended up getting back here in time for her to be born. But, it would probably be as easy or realistic to say that she went somewhere over the rainbow, through the wardrobe, or second star to the right, and straight on to morning. Your guess is as good as mine."

"Why do I get the feeling that maybe I should have stayed in bed, today?"

"Don't worry," Alex answered. "You get used to that sensation after a while, when dealing with my in-laws." In response to that, Noel have him a telekinetic wedgie.

The next week passed uneventfully, with the hardest part of the whole process being the procurement of glass from salvage of other buildings to replace the broken windows of the old UN complex, which had been a museum ever since 2012, and abandoned since 2030. An organized Yellow Dancer concert was held in Central Park, with Noel as the opening act, that also served as a means of registering voters, recruiting candidates and city workers, and reissuing civilian identification cards to replace those dating from before the Invid. In general, the city rejoiced at the end of almost 25 years of destruction, and the beginning of its true rebirth from the destruction that started with the Zentraedi.

**Chapter Three:**

"Despite what all had happened at Reflex Point, Scott still blamed the Invid for what happened on his arrival to Earth, and was carrying that burden even after the Invid left. Despite that, he still treated Sera as an equal, but continued to have difficulties dealing with Ariel/Marlene. She was a living reminder of all that he'd lost from the war, and it had slowly wearing him down. It had to come to a head, eventually, and when it did in New Detroit, it shocked even me." - Lancer

The next stop on the "Reconstruction Roadshow" was New Detroit - or at least, what was left of it. While Manhattan had been spared, for the most part, by the three Robotech Wars, Detroit had been a primary target for the Zentraedi; New Detroit had been hit by several raids by the Masters (including a wave of mind-numbed clones in the last day, and a glancing blow from a beam attack like the one that destroyed Monument - as they had managed to intercept the gunship, and it got off a desperation shot as it was about to be destroyed). Adding insult to injury, when the Invid arrived, the remains of both the new city and the old (which had been in the process of property rehabilitation for 20 years), found themselves too close to the spot chosen for Reflex Point to survive.

Yet, it did survive, barely. While most of the survivors found themselves working in Invid farms south of the city, several thousand remained in the ruins and underground tunnels that once were salt mines. These ranged from scavengers eking out a living taking salvage to the black marketeers in the ruins of Chicago and Buffalo, to a group of self-styled resistance rockers that spent as much time performing & recording anti-Invid music to lift the morale of those caught under the Invid thumb, as they did carrying out actual raids on Invid property (and becoming even more a problem for the Invid, than Bernard's group ever was). With the departure of the Invid, the slave population quickly abandoned the plantations, to return to rebuilding their city (though most of those working on the parts of the complex for growing food for their fellow humans stayed behind, realizing they'd quickly be rich selling the stored food and the new crops to the fools running back to "civilization" so quickly that they overlooked the need for food).

However, mixed within all those starry-eyed refugees were many of the informants and collaborators who had fled to Ohio and Indiana when the tide started to turn against the Invid. It was to ferret out and prosecute those quislings that they were heading to the once and future Motor City. As the Armanas were residents of New York, they remained there, and were replaced by Steve & Dani Derekson, who flew in on the Horizon-T with the new bunkers. Dani hadn't lived in Detroit since week before the Rain of Death, but she still considered it her home.

"Sera, are you really sure you want to go to Detroit with us?" Dani asked. "New York's always been more open to strangers, but don't tell Todd I said that - they have a reputation to uphold, after all. But, most of the people in Detroit know of you, and many would recognize you as one of their former slavelords at first sight. I'm from there, and Detroit isn't a pretty place; I can vouch that from personal experience. We can't guarantee your safety there, if too many people take offense to your presence."

"I have to go there, and that is the very reason I must do so. I have to make them see that I am sorry for what people inflicted on them in our ignorance and desperation, and that I will do everything to try to make things right. If I don't confront them, and the sins of my people, now, matters can only get worse."

Yellow Dancer had made arrangements to perform in one of the few reasonably-intact parks left in the Detroit area, one of the former industrial areas of old Detroit that had been cleaned up prior to the Masters, then left fallow afterward. It would be during an intermission half-way through the concert, while a costume and prop change was scheduled, that the Recovery Bureau would make its pitch. Sera went last, so that Dani and Scott could soften the impact of Sera's reveal.

"...And now, I would like to introduce someone who helped us in our recent victory. It was her joining us in our confrontation with the Regis that was one of the deciding factors in the departure of the Invid. I present to you Sera, former princess of the Invid." As Sera came on stage, a wave of shock, then uneasiness, passed through the audience.

"Thank you, Colonel Bernard. People of New Detroit, I know that any apology I might attempt to make for my people's actions would likely fall on deaf ears." A chorus of boos and epithets filled the air. "The truth is, there can be no apology sufficient enough for the atrocities we committed in our ignorance; in associating all humans with the crimes of the Robotech Masters. But, that is something that we must put behind us. All the assets of the now-abandoned hives are left to the people of Earth; especially the protoculture, that the Invid have evolved beyond the need for. It is fitting, if ironic, that the substance that caused all the destructive wars of the last century, will now be used to repair the damage done by those wars. I have chosen to cast my lot with humanity, and I hope my knowledge of the secrets of the Flower of Life will prove instrumental in reversing the damage done to the planet-"

Noel suddenly charged her, knocking her to the stage floor. As they fell, an energy blast shot from the crowd, passing through the space where Sera's head had been a moment before and blasting a hole in the backdrop. Panic passed through the crowd.

"Alex, get him!"

"Where is he? I couldn't see-"

"Caucasian, brown hair, about 190 centimeters, York fatigue jacket!" Noel shouted from the floor, where she had already covered sera and herself with a telekinetic field, in case someone tried grenades next. "He's heading for the tunnels!"

Lancer, coming back on stage in Yellow's new costume, grabbed one of the backup vocalist mikes, and yelled out to the crowd, in character "Someone, stop the man in the York jacket!"

Alex struggled through the crowd, and found that the gunman had taken a hostage when cornered - a small child.

"Noel, I could use some help right now!" Alex thought, knowing that his wife would be reaching for his mind.

"On my way!" Noel dropped the force field, stood up, then teleported down between Alex and the gunman. The looks on the surrounding people, let alone the gunman, as she appeared out of thin air, was priceless. She had no problem telekinetically ripping the weapon and the child from the hands of the shocked assassin, and Alex tackled him. He used the handcuffs he'd been carrying for use during official investigations on the man, then led him back to stage at gunpoint.

Sera looked him over with a glimmer of recognition. "I've seen him before; he was the head of a group of humans who betrayed newly-arrived soldiers to the Invid, in exchange for being allowed to use Protoculture weapons in their domination of other humans."

"I ought to shoot you myself," Scott said, seething with an anger like nothing that the others had seen before from him. "How many of my fellow soldiers' blood is on your hands? But, that would be to quick; too easy, and you have done nothing directly to me. However, your crimes have been against the people, so your fate lies with them. I wash my hands of you." He shoved the collaborator off the stage, into the crowd, before anyone could think of stopping him. The screams lasted less than a minute, and there was no way that Alex, Noel or Lancer could step in to save the man without risking getting killed.

Alex was shocked; he had never thought Bernard capable of anything like this. Then, he thought of the traitors in Louisiana, and of T.R. Edwards and his attempt to take over the REF in that farce of a trial at Tyrol. Scott had been building up a lot of frustration concerning persons such as these, and apparently, something snapped, and all that pent-up anger found a release point. That release was certain to haunt Scott later on, given his normal demeanor. The worst part is that the person that was most likely to be able to help him deal with it, was the person he was now drifting from, due to his inner conflicts over her origin. Scott still hadn't reconciled in his heart, the revelation of Marlene's true nature.

"Noel, what are we going to do with him?"

"I don't know, love. What's happened to him is beyond my ability to help, at least easily. Any attempt I make would probably make it worse, as he'd see it as an attempt to manipulate him. The damage is to his soul, not his mind, and I'm not about to attempt anything with that, unless asked. For a soul to truly heal, it must heal itself. Otherwise, nothing is gained, as the fix is only superficial, and it will become worse off in the end. It's not a good idea to play God with other people's souls."

"WHAT HAVE I DONE?" Scott wailed to himself, in his hotel room. It hadn't been until he had calmed down from his adrenaline high from the events of the concert, that the enormity of his actions had truly set in. At least no one could hear him.

The New Detroit Hyatt had been built as an underground complex in the early 2010s, when the threat of malcontents were all too real (as evidenced by the city being attacked by Khyron during the hotel's construction). It had thus been spared much of the above-ground devastation, having been abandoned as being too close to the surface when the Invid ravaged the city and the survivors either were taken away, or retreated to the safety of the deep mines. The manner of construction also meant the rooms were more soundproof than any above-ground hotel.

He reached inside his uniform, and pulled out the holo-locket he'd been carrying these last 14 months. He opened it, and as it repeated the message he'd long ago memorized, he felt more and more disgusted by what he'd done. He flung the locket at the far wall of the suite, only to have it fall short and hit the sofa bed instead of the wall. He looked for something else to throw, then settled on his H90. He grabbed it, and sat down on the bed.

There was no use to go on anymore, he thought. Marlene's dead, and I've turned against everything I once stood for. Better to end it now, then become an embarrassment to his friends. He raised the gun to his head...

"NO! DON'T DO IT!"

He turned toward the voice with a start. There, in the doorway, stood Marlene Rush, as she appeared when he had last seen her alive.

"Marlene? You're dead!"

"Please, Scott. Don't do it. If you kill yourself, then we will never be together."

"But, I've lost every; everything I've ever cared about. You, my squadron, my honor..."

"No, you haven't."

"How would you know? You're just a figment of my imagination!"

"Am I?" Marlene walked over, and tore the gun from his hand. He tried to grab her, only to have his hands pass through her arms. "I've been watching you, Scott. Your friends care for you, as much as I did. Killing yourself would only hurt them, especially the one that you gave my name."

"Why do you bring her into this? Her people killed you!"

"But I have forgiven them. Why haven't you? Marlene loves you, Scott, as much as I ever did. But, love is for the living. Don't fight what you feel for her. You have your whole life ahead of you; don't deny your feelings just because of me. Even if we had married, the vows are 'Till death do us part', Scott. You must go on without me, and you could do a lot worse than Marlene. If you had been the one to die, would you have expected me to mourn you forever, to the exclusion of all others?"

"I... I..."

"I know you wouldn't, Scott. That's why I loved you so much. You always thought of others first, at least when you weren't putting on that macho act that all you pilots have. Please, consider what I have said. I must go now; what little time to come here is almost gone. Remember that I will always love you, but that others love you as well, and it is for them that you should live." She came up to him, and kissed him on the forehead. "Goodbye, my love."

"Scott tried to grab her, once again, but again he passed through her as she faded away. Tears ran down Scott's face as he fell back onto the bed, asleep.

Noel slumped back against the headboard of her bed, exhausted. She hadn't intended to interfere, but Scott's problems had gotten far worse than she anticipated. She intervened, but the depths she had to plunge into of his mind had drained her. She hoped it would be enough.

"You think he'll be okay?" Alex asked.

"I hope so; at least, I think he's past the point where he'd even think of suicide."

"I hope so, too. Over the last year, he's become almost like a younger brother to me, as have the others. If he did something stupid like that, it would have hurt all of them."

**Chapter Four:**

"God not only plays dice, He also sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen."

- Stephen Hawking

"Come take my hand

You should know me -

I've always been in your mind

You know I will be kind

I'll be guiding you..."

- Olivia Newton-John, "Magic" (from the movie _Xanadu_)

_**Several weeks ago, location indeterminate:**_

The SDF-3 defolded with a sickening shudder; even those that hadn't experienced a fold since the trip from Earth to Tyrol in the early 2020s could tell that something unexpected had occurred.

"Bridge to Engineering," Admiral Richard "Rick" Hunter called out. "What the hell just happened? We came out of fold, but our sensors are picking up nothing - even less of 'nothing' than should be there."

"I do not know, Admiral. I've never seen readings such as these. I can tell you that we are neither in foldspace, nor in normal space. Beyond that, I am in the dark as much as you."

"That's just wonderful," Rick moaned, slumping in his command chair. He glanced over to his wife, who was doing her best to calm the various department heads aboard the ship, then turned his attention to the bust of Henry Gloval, behind her seat. "Here we go again..."

Beyond the "nothing" out there that shielded the sole star system in the pocket dimension from view, four figures stood at a pool of water that served also as a means of viewing events beyond the veil and in the manipulated universes.

"Zor, what did your disciple do?" Haydon said in frustration, "Whatever kind of insane stunt you're pulling, it isn't going to work."

"Whatever she is doing, it is out of my control. Remember - I made her with free will so that you couldn't pre-empt her moves by observing me. As a result, she has surprised even me on several occasions - like when she disappeared out of our view that one time before, at Optera." he glanced down at the unlit pool. "If you pardon the expression, I am as much in the dark as you, as to where she took the Invid."

"What happens now?" the third figure interrupted, drawing what could only be considered a stare from the being that was once the human named H''dyn, who had long ago shed all but the basics of a humanoid form. Zor stepped up to shield her.

"That is a good question, Mother. The contest was best of three, and until we find out what happened, we are left tied at one - and while the result in the third is advantageous for me, it's not yet conclusive enough for it to be considered either way."

"Shall we find another alternate to manipulate? Haydon asked, haughtily. "One without a 'loose cannon', as the self-styled Terrans would say, let loose to foul all our plans?"

"No," the fourth figure spoke up. What has been done already is bad enough. Son, don't let him talk you into continuing this farce."

"That won't be necessary," a fifth voice echoed, as its owner walked into the grove. She stood about 2 meters tall, with skin the color of finished wood, and brown hair that seemed to give off a golden glow. She was wearing clothes of a type not seen in over twelve thousand years, and walked with the grace of a tiger - a tiger stalking its next meal, more exactly.

"Ta'yaela! But, you're dead!"

"So, that was her name, Haydon? Tell me - did she REALLY know what you had planned for me, and the rest of the children? Or, did you even tell the parents of what your TRUE intentions were for their offspring? You denied our people our true form, for what? You told them it was a means of making penance for the war Ta'yaela's family instigated with the ancestors of the Tyroleans. All you did was steer the two civilizations to slaughter each other again and again for your benefit. Was the fall of Tartarus on Tyrol really an accident, or was it to put down a society you could not control, since it was taking too long to build your race of robotic servants? Did the Praxian colonists that escaped the fall of Tartarus really have a cataclysmic civil war on their own, or did you have your hand in it, as well, so that you could manipulate their children, as you had manipulated your own people?"

"Regis, is that you?" Zor guessed.

"Yes, finally in the physical form my genetics said I should have had, without Haydon's lies - but I still possess all the powers as before So, Haydon - do I really look that much like my mother - who spurned your advances, and offers to leave her arranged marriage to become your queen of all creation? From what I was able to pick up from the minds of Zor's parents, while watching you fret over the latest turn of events, my counterpart that had no knowledge of her true heritage almost managed to stand up to you. Between the five of us allied against you, you have no chance of standing against us."

"Five? So, Karen is here as well?

"Yes; but I wanted to handle this confrontation on my own, and she agreed to let me enter first."

"You mean, she is a coward," Haydon sneered. "She sent you in first to see if I was strong enough to smite you down out of hand."

"Far from it, traitorous fool. She wanted for us to enter together, but I persuaded her otherwise. You are beaten, Haydon. I rebuke you and the Flowers of your schemes. But, I will not destroy you; that would make me too much like you, and I have recently become too aware of the dangers of letting your hatred of one's enemies turn you into the very thing you hate. A more fitting punishment would be to return you to your original mortal form, and return you to an Earth of another universe, so primitive that you will have to live out your normal life span with no chance of escape. And, the only change to your human body will be to prevent your rescue; any attempt to have some hidden servant of yours to rescue you will cause that body to die, when exposed to the effects of time or dimensional travel. Do the rest of you agree to these terms?"

The Regis looked at the others, and each of them nodded in agreement. Haydon, however, was furious, as he felt the binding power of the challenge he accepted from Zor (one he thought was impossible to lose), sap his power away. He became human once more, then was frozen. Karen then walked in, and sent Haydon on his way; after all, none of the others really knew enough about Earth history to send him.

"So, where did you send him?"

"The European Middle Ages, about 800 years before my time period, on an Earth where there were no escapees from the destruction of our ancestral societies, so therefore, no aliens to contact in this region of space. If he can learn the languages fast enough, avoid being killed as a witch, and not get killed by a Mongol invasion, he should be able to live out his normal lifespan."

"It's more than he deserved, but it's less likely that he'll be an issue there. Between the loss of scientific knowledge up to that point, and any relic technology he could access being beyond usable condition, it's the safest place to put him. Okay, Angelo, it's safe to come out now."

"Are these people who I think they are?"

"Sorta - just not really your home-grown versions of them - except the Regis, that is. Did you take notes like I asked you to?"

"Yeah, but not like anyone would believe it."

"Well, you get to try to convince the Hunters." She concentrated on him, and he started to fade.

"Come on - can't I just fly there like a normal pers-?" he whined, as he disappeared from view.

"...son?" Angie found himself in a dark room, the only sounds coming from what had to be a bed. The sounds from the bed left little imagination what was going on in it.

"Cripes, Karen, couldn't you have found someplace a little less occupied?" he thought aloud, not realizing he was actually speaking the words.

"What the?" A voice yelped from the bed, as the sounds of persons fumbling for covers soon followed. "Angie? Angie, is that you?"

"Bowie, is that you?" a bedside lamp came on, and Angie realized he was at the foot of a larger than expected bed - and that there were two women, not one, in bed with Bowie - and they were obviously all naked under the sheet. One was Musica, the other was her clone-sister Allegra. Seeing this, Angie turned red as a beet, living up to his reputation of being an overgrown Boy Scout masquerading as a tough as nails soldier. "Bowie, that's kinky! Do your parents know about this?"

"I'd prefer it if you let me tell them myself, if the SDF-3 ever gets out of here." Musica handed Bowie his pants, and he struggled with putting them on under the sheet as he continued. "Speaking of Earth, I thought you were on Earth, fighting the Invid. How did you get here? For that matter, do you even know where 'here' is? It's been driving Louie and Dr. Lang nuts since we got here."

"I only know where 'here' is in the vaguest of terms - it's a pocket dimension; sort of a seed of a newborn universe, created by another universe's Haydon. Noel's sister Karen brought me to it to be a witness to the fall of Haydon, and to report the news to the Admirals of what occurred on Earth and on the world hidden here."

"So, what happened on Earth, if you care to tell an old friend, first?"

"The assault of Reflex Point went on as scheduled without the SDF-3; Karen, Noel, Zor and some of the locals persuaded the Invid to leave Earth with Karen, to come here. Turns out Haydon was trying to sucker them into flying to their own destruction when they left. On top of that, the person that ended up in command of the fleet ordered the fleet to destroy Earth, after we'd WON, to try to keep the Invid from escaping. Near as I can tell, the Invid had to destroy part of the fleet as we left Earth, in order to save Earth. Of course, that trip was such a mind rush that I can hardly come up with the words for it, so I can't be sure exactly what happened, but in a way, the Invid did it to make up for their actions from being corrupted by Haydon's influence. Now, if you'll point me towards the bridge, I'll leave." He wasn't sure who this situation was more uncomfortable for - him, or the three in the bed.

"Out the bedroom, into the corridor, turn right, go to the third set of elevators, and go to the top. The marines there can get you the rest of the way to the bridge. And, Angie, when you're done there, stop back by so you can catch us up on what's been going on back home. I promise we'll be dressed by then."

Angie practically ran out of the two-room apartment, and wasn't watching where he was going as he went out the door. As a result, he collided head-on with a woman who was walking past the door when it slid open, knocking both of them to the floor. As they stood, both apologizing profusely, Angie realized that she was taller than him, and absolutely gorgeous.

"Uhh.. Can you help me get to the bridge?"

"Don't you know where it is? The fall must have disoriented you."

"Actually, I just came aboard. I just had a crazy half-Zentraedi ex-girlfriend teleport me into Bowie's room, right into the middle of an orgy."

"The only half-Zentraedi I know that would be old enough to date someone like you is Karen, and for that matter, she's the only person I know that can teleport someone else, that isn't a Perytonian."

"Yep, that's her. Can you help me get to the bridge? I have news from Earth."

"I'll take you there, myself. My name's Gnea."

"Angelo Dante; my friends call me Angie."

"So, you're the one I've heard Bowie and Louie talk about."

"What did they say?"

"That you're a very strong, very brave, warrior, even if you end up getting caught up in things you'd rather not be part of."

"Did they mention that they were typically the ones that got me into such things, directly or indirectly through Dana having to ride to their rescue?"

"No, but Nova Brown did."

"How do you know Karen?"

"We fought side by side on Karbarra, Praxis, Garuda and Haydon IV."

"You're a Praxian, right?"

"Yes. Here's the elevator. You said Karen sent you. How are things on Earth?"

"It's a long story; perhaps you should come with me and listen as I report to the Hunters."

"Sure." They stepped on the elevator.

When the elevator arrived by the bridge, the doors opened to reveal the rare sight of a human and a Praxian kissing. It had took a little finagling, but Zor & Karen's subconscious implants kick-started one of the few good things that occurred in Haydon's corrupt timeline that was in danger of not occurring here.

Speaking of Karen & Zor...

"Well, that takes care of the last loose string I dragged here from Earth. That leaves the five of us, though I'm sure the Regis really wants to get over to the far side of the planet and begin re-evolving her people back to their ancestral form," Karen said. "Zor, finally we can be together in peace, the way we should have been long ago."

"Huh? Karen, I have always hoped that you would stay with me, but where is all this 'finally' and long ago come from?"

"Then, you truly don't know, do you?" Karen's voice changed slightly. "This place is magical, literally. Why do you think Haydon coveted it so? It has the power to make dreams into reality - within limits, of course. And, your creation of me got caught up in one of those wishes of yours..."

**Chapter Five:**

"I know you're out there somewhere

(somewhere, somewhere)

I know I'll find you find you somehow -

and somehow I'll return again to you..."

- The Moody Blues

_**Last Year, in Karen's mind**_

"KAREN! Snap out of it!"

"Hunh?" That doppleganger of herself, the one that had always been in her mind, that helped her in her times of greatest need, was yelling at her. The two were floating in a red mist, after Karen's mind had been clobbered telepathically from some sort of sensory wave, associated with Noel.

"Come on, girl; I can't do this alone."

"Noel's dead."

"You can't be sure of that. I know what we felt. But, we heard other minds mixed in there, too. With a signal that mixed up, who knows who or what we actually felt die - if that wasn't just a psychic imprint of someone's past death. It's one of the reasons we avoid object reading something where mass deaths occurred; Noel's not that experienced, you know. Pull yourself together; it's almost as bad in here as Noel's mind was four years ago."

Karen finally straightened up, and began taking a look at her surroundings. She was floating adrift in her own mind. Her doppleganger was sitting on a fragmented memory shard, her long green hair blowing in an unfelt wind.

"Well, if we're both here, who's running the show?"

"Right now, no one. Of course, considering that you were in such pain and thrashing around that the base medics injected us with enough sedatives to knock Breetai out for a couple days, to make sure you didn't start lashing out blindly with your powers, we've got plenty of time to straighten up this place."

"Nice outfit." Her opposite number was wearing a tight-fitting black & white pants and blouse combination.

"I borrowed it from one of your cousins. She was a talk show host in New Tokyo, before the Masters arrived. A singer, like us; then again, I think that's more than genetics with us, part of our soul."

"Cousin? What in hell are you talking about? Just what I need; a split personality with delusional fantasies of non-existent relatives."

"Well, maybe not cousin, in a genetic sense at least. But, I'm not delusional; I'm not actually a sign of multiple personality disorder, either. In fact, I'm probably more responsible for the belief you had such a disorder, than you would think. I created the mental watchdogs that kept you and Noel safe from Zand and other kooks; the ones that resembled your parents. And, when it became time for me to come out, I helped you remove them. After all, someone had to help you harvest all that useful knowledge you copied from them and your doctors, and consolidate it into a useful form, while deleting all the excess baggage that came with that material."

"Then, what are you?"

"You, but not you; More than you, but a fleeting memory. A half-realized, unspoken wish made flesh - or at least spirit."

"You sound more like a bad attempt at Zen Poetry..."

"Well, it's hard to put into words, who and what I am. You had to be kept unaware of my true nature, for the safety of your entire family - not that our adversary likes them much, anyway, being the chosen tools of his arch-enemy. Why do you think that, when we joined our mind with Noel's, to repair her trauma, neither of you could read those parts belonging to me, mostly in your mind, but a few of them in hers, that I retrieved in the process, to let her live her own life, free of me, from then on?"

"I know you're the one responsible for keeping me on this hidden mission. I figure it has something to do with Protoculture. But, why me, and was this war really necessary? The Regis I saw traces of in deep space SHOULD have been more open to reason."

"That's part of the burden I bear - that WE bear, but I've kept as much of it off your shoulders for as long as possible. It's time that you know what's really going on."

"And that is?"

"The Invid, collectively, are like a young child, lashing out from pain, even at those that would help them heal, if given the chance. The Regis isn't much better than anyone else of her race. For despite being the Great Mother of her race, she acts more like a hurt, broken, teen-ager, angry over her being betrayed repeatedly by her boyfriends, and taking it out on everyone else. As much as this war hurts humanity, the next year's bloodshed will lead to the maturity the Regis needs to put an end to this. To quote a television show from before the Zentraedi war, 'This has happened before; and will happen again'. Granted, not the same way here, as in those alternate universes, like the one you saw the animated version of. There's a reason I didn't let you watch the episodes corresponding to the last few months, through next year."

"And, we are to sit idly by, why people die?"

"Of course not. Our place is to reduce casualties when possible, for both sides; and, when the time comes, to provide a way out for the Invid, to break out of the vicious circle that Haydon created for his benefit. There are other considerations, too; ones within our heart."

"That empty place, that you won't let me see inside."

"You see, there's much more to me than simply being a part of you. We came about from the desire of someone to right the incredible wrongs he caused when he was a pawn of Haydon, our adversary. Not here, but elsewhere."

"Those other universes... How many times has this happened?"

"Very perceptive. It's really not possible to quantify how many alternates have occurred from the original timeline. Hell, even the timeline we are an alternate of is most likely, an alternate itself, seeing how much was different from the depiction in the animated series. But, the crux of the matter is that in one alternate, the pawn of Haydon was recreated in Haydon's realm; perhaps to gloat over, perhaps to let the pawn share in the fruits of his personal suffering. After all, most mythologies have the creator god of the pantheon creating other gods to share creation with, from the lack of the companionship of true peers. As in many of those legends, the student revolted against what the master had done, and conflict arose.

"Even now, the two are contesting here, to determine who shall remain, and who shall be destroyed. It was actually a best of three contest, and this universe is the deciding one. And, we are the ones with the power to tilt the scales. Our creator weakened himself, to take an incredible chance. He created us as an independent agent, not controllable by himself or his foe, with limited knowledge of the battles to come, that for your safety, I have kept from you until you needed to know particulars."

"Zor created us? Why did he turn against Haydon, when Haydon recreated him, then?"

"Haydon never considered that, while ambitious, Zor was hardly a willing participant in most of the tragedies that occurred from the exploitation of his work. Without the blinders that Haydon's manipulations had put on him, that made him so single-minded in his pursuit of science that he didn't realize the evil of his superiors until it was too late, Zor was all too able to see the horrors that he had inflicted on the universe - especially on the women closest to him in life. Torn from his mother as a child, he was cursed to find two soul-mates as an adult, only to be forced to betray one through the mind control of the Masters, and to have the other die in his arms when he tried to stand up against the evil that occurred from the abuse of his research."

"So, what is our part in this? To save the Regis?"

"Only partly. You see, in the original situation, Haydon used the Invid to power his acquisition of his other-dimensional realm. If the Invid leave your Earth in the same manner, they will be going to their oblivion, as Haydon won't be allowing your universe's counterpart of himself to awaken to challenge him. In that original timeline, Haydon stripped the Invid of their power, reverting them to the primitive, semi-sentient state he'd engineered them into from the children of his misguided colleagues, after they'd fled Earth; yes, your suspicions were correct, and I never had to reveal them to you - the Invid were, and can be, just as human as we are. The Flowers apparently chose to tell you, despite Haydon's wishes, because they felt an affinity with you. Perhaps it's because they realized that if you, if we, let the Invid carry through with the grand plan, that Haydon would just absorb their energy form to expand his realm, and kill this universe's Invid outright - not to mention its Flowers."

"We can't let that happen."

"We won't. By the way, my analogies earlier were a little weak. The Regis was a spiritual, intellectual, equal to Zor; but his heart belonged to another. He loved both, but in different ways. In fact, the nature of the relationships were such that, if fate had allowed, that they would have been able to coexist."

"The Regis assumed human form for Zor, then kept it as a reminder of her betrayal. Wouldn't she have provided competition for Musica?"

"No; her first priority has always been her children. By the time Zor left Optera, she accepted that their relationship would be as friends. Zor had someone to whom his heart already belonged."

"Wait a minute. From Rem's recovered memories, Zor didn't meet Musica until he returned from Optera."

"Yes, and you always felt that there was something wrong about that memory."

"Well, yes..."

"That's because Rem's memories are correct - at least as far as for this universe, and the one where we spent a few months in our mother's womb. In the universe where the Zor that created us came from, they met when Cabell started experimenting with the effects of music on the meager pre-Protoculture mental powers of the Tyrolean people, as they found themselves spending much of their life together.

"Musica was an anomaly; already an accomplished musician, she was also the most powerful projective empath in the history of Tyrol. Even before Zor brought back the first Flowers to experiment on, the Elders were already looking for methods of psionic mind control; something that Cabell and Zor alike never really understood until after the fact. Protoculture only provided a catalyst to speed up the Elder's plans to actually be possible in their lifetimes. And, ironically, it was the experiments in Cabell's labs that gave Zor the resistance to shake off their control in time to save the Invid from extinction."

"Then, if Rem's memories are correct, then how do we know the other version?"

"Haven't you figured that out yet? I'm only staring you in the face. What's the only permanent difference between my avatar and yours?'

"Your eyes; they are violet, almost an indigo color. My eyes are green."

"And, of all of your relatives, who has violet eyes?"

"No one in my immediate family; only - I've been such a fool not to notice! How is it even possible?"

"When Zor created you, of course. His heart still aches, after all. He was hoping that, after we beat Haydon at his own game, that you would be forgiving of his actions enough to consider starting a new life at his side. That was the real reason for his giving you free will from the start, instead of setting himself up for a repeat of his revolt against Haydon. But, in the moment of your creation, his heart ruled his mind, acting on his deepest, unspoken, wish, that he'd tried unsuccessfully to bring about in life -"

Karen continued, overcome with emotion; "- For you, his truest love, to be returned to him. It was your memories of him that confused my telepathic readings of Cabell and Rem, wasn't it... Musica?" The question was rhetorical, of course. "But what does it mean for me, in the end?"

"Look at me. My avatar doesn't look like the Musica you know; that should speak volumes by itself. After seventeen years, you and I are inseparable. The only divisions between us are artificial, meant to safeguard us from inadvertently tipping our hand to Haydon. If he'd found out, earlier, I'm sure he would have tried to find a way to turn that knowledge into a weapon against Zor. But, now, we are close enough to the end game that the division is no longer necessary, though the secrecy about our past still is, and probably will be, until the Invid are safe."

"If we merge, which of us will be dominant?"

"That's like asking which of hydrogen and oxygen are dominant, after you combine them to make water, when you made the two elements by splitting water molecules in the first place."

"And that means?"

"We have always been one - the only times you see me separately, is when I actively have to be; think of me as your conscience, more than a past life or split personality. I care deeply for our parents, our children, Marie, Scott and the others, because I AM you, and our feelings are inseparable. And, it goes both ways; it's probable your instant attraction to Rem was from my falling in love at first sight, with Zor. I'll be easing the barriers between my memories and yours down over the next few weeks, as soon as we figure out in here, while we're out cold to the rest of the world, what the proper assimilation speeds should be. They'll be as much yours, as your memories of your abbreviated childhood. We'll still be Karen, just remembering that we were once called Musica, and that we never stopped loving Zor." Musica dropped that barrier, first, flooding Karen with the memories of a romance that spanned the stars, and not even death and the crossing of dimensions could tear it asunder.

Karen now understood fully the conflict in Zor Prime's heart, torn between memories of his original Musica, tormented by the clone with her memories - but not her emotions - and Dana, who had inherited much of the personality, if not spirit, of her biological grandmother - at least the part that flowered when she was with Zor, as Musica did not truly blossom into her full self without him at her side. She understood what drove Zor to try, unsuccessfully, to recreate Musica using his ship's computer, then with an android - and why both she and that android, now called Janice, were instantly drawn to Rem, even willing to share him, as they instinctively recognized each other as different facets of the same gem, shattered long ago.

"Wow."

"We have plenty of time for the rest, later. Let's get this disaster area cleaned up before we open up any more overfilled mental closets."

"And for now, at least, two of us in here is better than one."

"By the way, when we're done, let's check on the twins. I miss them."

"We can reach them from here?"

"Yes; I've been watching them passively for the last three years. Even they know they can contact each other, and Aurora, at any distance - even in foldspace. How else do you think that Aurora contacted Marie, and patched her into the link that Dana accidentally created when she was fighting the Masters? When they contacted you, I intercepted it, and handled it for you; we'll do those memories next. I had to keep it from you, to keep you from potentially upsetting the balance of current events. Someone specific, that you know, had to get to Earth with Mars Division under circumstances like those of the other universes, otherwise the changes could be catastrophic to the timeline, and muddle any chance we have to make things right. It's possible, even, that the effect we felt, was either Zor or even Haydon, preventing Alex and Noel from using her powers to interfere."

"Scott Bernard."

"Yes, in fact, I think he, not our uncle, is the 'Scott' being called for by that one voice in the backlash. Given its effect on us, Noel's mind is probably scrambled pretty badly, if she didn't get killed by it. After all, she was flying in a veritech at the time."

"But at least there's still hope she's alive."

_**Omphalos, shortly after Reflex Point**_

"...You aren't the only one that has been born again. Don't you remember when Cabell sent us to Haydon IV, to study those texts that the Haydonites would not allow copies of off-planet, that told of the Invid being one of Haydon's gifted races, and how we became lovers, that first night in Glike?"

"Musica? How can it be?"

"When you made Karen, you still had in your heart your desire to have me return to you. The nature of this realm merged your two desires - conscious and unconscious - into one, and I found myself reborn as part of her. Although I chose to hide my presence, I was always with her, and I always hoped one day to make it back to you."

"Is Karen still part of you?"

"Yes; we've been one person for several months now; we began integration after the trauma where Noel lost her powers, and we thought she'd died. In fact, we prefer that you call us Karen; Musica's my grandmother. But know that we never stopped loving you."

**Chapter Six:**

"This time, I wonder what it feels like

To find the one in this life, the one we all dream of

But dreams just aren't enough

So I'll be waiting for the real thing, I'll know it by the feeling

The moment when we're meeting, will play out like a scene

Straight off the silver screen

So I'll be holding my own breath, right up 'til the end

Until that moment when, I find the one that I'll spend forever with...

- Nickelback, "Gotta Be Somebody"

**SDF-3 Bridge**

"So, Mr. Dante, you're telling me the war is over, that we won - at least for certain values of the term, and you have no idea where we are?" Rick Hunter was not amused.

"Well, sir, that's as best as I can describe it. I was dragged along to be a witness to some things that occurred on this end, so I can't vouch for what happened on Earth after I left - except that since I was traveling here with the Invid, and Karen Freeman, it's safe to say that the Invid are no longer on Earth for that to be a point of contention. There is also the matter that the REF fleet fired some sort of doomsday weapons at Earth, after it was obvious that the Invid were defeated, and gave no warning to those on the ground that the weapons were incoming. The Invid attempted to stop the weapons, as they left, but I was not in a position to see how, or even if, that occurred."

"Care to explain how you ended up getting very familiar with the Praxian representative in my elevator?"

"Something just came over us, sir. I just can't explain it. It just felt right."

"Back to the situation on Earth; doomsday weapons, you say?"

"Yes - the description I heard was capital ship sized kinetic kill weapons impregnated with radioactive materials to poison the planet, to insure the Invid found it distasteful. But, based on my knowledge of environmental recovery operations on Earth, I thought that the Invid had the ability to remove radioactives from their environment with their flowers. Pardon my bluntness, sir, but who ordered those damn things when they should have known they wouldn't work?"

"The politicians on Tyrol and their clique in the military. I'm frankly not surprised we didn't make it back to Earth - until you showed up, the most common theory of our misfold was that the council had our fold drives sabotaged, to allow that political ass Reinhardt run the liberation, since they knew I was more likely to order those foolish weapons to be launched into the sun than let them be used, even in a worst case scenario."

"Well, it sure worked out that way, even if they weren't responsible for getting you out of the picture. Hopefully, once Karen gets done with whatever she's doing on the planet hidden on the other side of that quantum fog, she'll come here and tell you how to get us out of here."

"I hope so - this place is getting on my crew's nerves, let alone mine. Some of her stunts have made me want to take my role as her godfather seriously - but how can one confine a teleporter to their quarters, let alone put her in the brig for insubordination."

"Aw, come on, Uncle Rick," Karen purred, teleporting in and grabbing his shoulders from behind. "You know that you just want to bend me over your knee and spank me for being a naughty girl, but Lisa would object."

Rick jumped out of his seat so fast one might think HE could teleport. "Jesus, Karen! That's not funny! Considering that Dante says you're one of the people in charge here, I won't pretend you're still officially in uniform, but that joke was in really bad taste."

"I'm a telepath, Admiral. I may be exaggerating the level of attraction, but I know there's not a male on this bridge that hasn't entertained erotic thoughts concerning me at some time in their career - and a majority of the females; and that's including the gay men and straight women."

"Enough of your sexual magnetism; where the hell are we?"

"I would say, 'exactly', but you wouldn't appreciate another joke. The best way to describe this area is as a pocket dimension - one that with time could expand to hold multiple star systems, maybe even galaxies, millions of years from now. Sort of a 'space' between alternate timelines, that can become its own universe as its population grows. That's one of the reasons Haydon was so intent to gain access to it; so he could go from 'playing god' to BEING god here in the most literal sense. However, Zor, the Regis and I kicked him out for manipulating our lives."

"Zor? As in THE Zor? Isn't he dead?"

"He was, but he's feeling MUCH better now..." Karen replied, affecting a semi-impersonation of John Astin."Actually, he's not our universe's Zor, but the one from the universe that the Haydon that was here came from. It's too complicated to explain casually. I'll just let you read my book, when it's done."

"How long will that take?"

"Oh, a few weeks, relative. While you're waiting, your crew will have access to the planet below for recreation and supplies. You do need to rebuild your fold engines, after all. And, when that's done, you'll still need target coordinates from me. If you check your sensors, you'll find the ship is now in orbit. And, I think that somewhere down there is the fold drive from that other universe's SDF-3."

"Any suggestions as to recreation?"

"Well, no matter where you go on the planet, you'll probably be the first person there, but most of the geology was shaped by the collective unconscious thought of another universe's SDF-3 crew, even though most of them never got a chance to land. There's a nice beach down by Zor's parents' place, if you want to visit; I'm sure they'd be glad to have you over. Haydon held them captive here, and they were the ones that tricked Haydon into restoring Zor to life here."

"I wonder what kind of parents a person like Zor would have?"

"I think it would be best for you to find that out in person..."

_**Earth:**_

The events of New Detroit had finally confirmed what many in the Recovery Bureau had been saying since the unit had been organized; that anything resembling peace would not be possible until the collaborators were rounded up and taken care of. Not only were their crimes indicative of how they'd behave if given a chance elsewhere, but as long as they were on the loose, there was almost certain to be people that would go after them in a less than controlled manner, and inflict massive casualties to innocent and guilty alike. Of course, not every community would initially have that problem, but those collaborators that escaped the initial dragnet would be fairly certain to try to relocate to where they would be less likely to be recognized, and that needed to be cut off as quickly as possible..

Three months into their "road show", they'd visited all the major surviving communities in North America; Manhattan, Detroit, the Carolinas, and the Utah farming communities that had been cut off from the more technological survivors since the fall of Monument. The latter was becoming more important, as not only were the former Invid farms in the south being returned to their pre-Invid crops, many of the REF ships were going to be landed in Nevada, and the occupants divided between the mothballed cities of that state, and the underground city that Bernard's group had rediscovered in Colorado. As such, the reoccupied ruins of New Provo was Bernard's last stop in the North. From New Provo, a mix of fleet personnel and freedom fighters would be going out for the census required for the new elections and to find places for the fleet to live; after all, concentrating all their veterans in a few cities was a major contributor to the breakup of the previous attempts at world government. Scott passed on responsibility for that project to others, then prepared his group for their return to the Southlands.

As Scott had seemingly snapped out of his funk after Detroit, Noel and Alex chose to not bring up the issue again. After all, if Scott did snap, Noel should be able to stop it from getting out of hand. The real worry would be revisiting some of the places that had pretty much came apart since Bernard and the others came through - mostly from before Alex & Noel joined the group. Rook & Rand had been sent ahead to scout their stops, and the news coming back caused a lot of worry.

Cavern City was relatively unchanged, the Snakes having fell apart in the wake of their leader being deposed by Rook's challenge, and the damage resulting from one of their members having stolen Protoculture from the Invid causing the people to finally rise against their oppressors. However, that was one of the few high points of the trip. For example, the "soldier trap" town where Scott & Rand first encountered Rook & Annie was completely gone - not even the islands remained, and the lake was choked with rubble. Wolfe's Soldiertown was also completely wiped away, as the scavengers/survivors that Alex & Noel encountered just prior to their unintentional joining of Scott's band had long cleaned out what was usable, and had left for greener pastures. And, even the abandoned remnants of Point Kilo and Uraba had apparently been scoured by the Invid after their group had left, to limit their usefulness to others.

Norristown was a much diminished place than in their last visit. The Neo-Maoist government that was present before was gone, purged by the Invid after the massive theft engineered by Lancer and the Resistance. Not long after that, the Invid began their pullback into North America, before the replacement government could get entrenched, and it quickly fell as well. The Resistance had taken over not long after, and was still in the process of reestablishing order in the surrounding area. As such, they were eager to get Lancer and the others back to provide some legitimacy to their regime, as well as to do another concert. The concert was scheduled for the day before the planned SDF-3 search & rescue mission; in part to see Scott off as he joined that mission and left Alex & Noel in charge of the Recovery Bureau's war crimes investigation branch for the Americas.

Noel definitely was going to perform, despite not feeling well recently. She felt she owed it to Karen's memory to do so - well, as much as one can do for the memory someone who wasn't actually dead, just passed to another plane of existence. Of course, most people would take that statement as meaning she'd died. It would take some serious work to convince people otherwise, and it would have to be done with care; she definitely didn't want some crackpot cult, religious or otherwise, grow out of knowledge of Karen's abilities and ultimate fate.

Karen's last words to them at Reflex Point still confused those that were there. She had told them that she would give them gifts of some sort, but so far the only apparent gift they had gotten had been surviving Reflex Point, and having a world free of alien domination. However, knowing her sister as well as she did, she knew that wasn't what Karen meant. And, knowing Karen, the gifts could be anything.

From beside his war-torn Legios, Colonel Scott Bernard sat and listened to the songs of Noel & Lancer. Noel was currently on stage, singing a song that seemed strangely familiar. Soon, he recognized it as one of the 20th century songs that she had been reworking during the trip from Colorado to the Carolinas, after picking up the original from recordings in the underground city. And, he now realized who it was she'd reworked the song to be about...

"...Have to go on, mustn't look back;

But in his heart he still hears her.

He closes his heart to the world outside

Duty's all he can live for...

Oh, think twice;

'Cause it's another day for you and me in paradise.

Oh, think twice

'Cause it's another day for you - you and me in paradise..."

"Penny for your thoughts, Colonel?" a familiar voice said from behind him.

"What? Noel, aren't you on sta - Karen, is that you?"

"I'm forgotten so soon?" Karen smirked. "Yes, I've come back; but just for the evening. The song is right, you know. Noel and I have had our visions; of the past, present and future. You belong with Marlene."

"But, do I belong with Ariel?"

"They are the same person. Why do you deny what your heart tells you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Take her to the Rushes, aboard the _Ark Angel_; they'll tell you the same. You forget; prior to the likes of Sera and Corg, the Regis needed someone to use as a template for any simulagent she created. Only after studying Earth's biosphere was she able to create replicas of the life from it; and even then, she had to have a starting point. That starting point was the remains of the command ship of the 21st Squadron."

"That's impossible! The ship was destroyed!"

"Was it, though? You had to concentrate on saving yourself, by that point. All you really saw was the ship blow up, and an Invid holding the neck of the Horizon to make sure the crew compartment didn't separate, before the explosion. But, even so... Didn't anyone ever teach you anything of the history of space travel? In 1986, one of the space shuttles was blown up by a external fuel tank explosion, a minute into flight. Some of the crew survived the explosion, only to die when the remains of the crew section hit the ocean. None of them died from the actual blast, or even the decompression - just the concussion of the initial explosion, or the final impact. Surely the cockpit of a combat dropship, designed to itself act as an emergency reentry vehicle, is more sturdily built than a 1970s tech space truck built by the lowest bidder?

"I have to go now; I hear my stage cue. Forget your mission - it will be obsolete in a few minutes, anyway. Come back to the concert, and watch my final miracle unfold."

With that, she disappeared in a shimmer of light, leaving a confused Scott Bernard staring in the direction of the stage.

"I know this is probably a huge shock to you all; well, those of you that weren't involved backstage at my last concert here," Lancer explained to the crowd, having shed his Yellow persona DURING the previous song. "But, I'll still be out there performing for a living; at least as long as you folks keep coming to see me. There doesn't seem to be much money in freedom fighting anymore."

The crowd laughed at the comment, then Lancer continued. "Noel Tyler, as you have heard by now, is the little sister of Karen Ellison, whom a lot of you old-timers probably remember from the days before the SDF-3 left. I was going to do this song anyway, but she requested I do it now, instead of at the end of the concert. After seeing what she and her sister are capable of doing to people who don't listen to their suggestions, I was inclined to do as I was told."

Alex looked over at Noel - only to have Noel shrug, and mouth quietly, "It wasn't me", before seeming turning her attention to something Alex couldn't hear, and running backstage..

"This is my second-most popular song," Lancer continued, "and probably the most popular song of this century. After all, one million shiploads of Zentraedi can't be wrong!" He then tore into his rendition of "We Can Win", or as his version was more commonly know, "We Will Win". As the song's bridge began, he looked into the far reaches of the semi-natural amphitheater, he saw Scott Bernard enter, and walk up to General Freeman, and the two start talking in a quite animated manner. Then, he heard the voice in his head, as Noel walked back onto the stage, but not all the way out to him.

"Go on, but be prepared for something strange. This song will be remembered forever."

"Blessed, with strong hearts that beat as one, watch us soar.

And with love that conquers all, we'll win this battle,

This last battle -"

A flash of light erupted to his left around Noel, as her mother and her sister appeared on stage with her, active mikes in hand, and joined in.

"We will win!"

-Another flash, this one to the right, as a trio of Tyrolean muses and a young black man appeared, joining in for the next line -

"We must win!"

A third flash enveloped Lancer himself, and as the light cleared, there was a woman to either side of him; one with lavender hair and pale skin, the other ethnic Chinese. There was no mistaking the identities of these two...

"We Will Win..."

"WE WILL WIN!" they all sung together, finishing the song, and as the music hit its final note, the sky lit up with a flash, and the sonic crack and wind rush of a massive air displacement. Everyone turned their heads up to look, and as the light cleared, the shape of the SDF-3 emerged from the light, about ten kilometers up. Cheers went up from the crowd, as well as everywhere around the world that was watching via satellite relay, from New Columbus to the ships and outposts of the Indian Ocean, to the bases on the Moon, Mars and over Jupiter.

A minute or so later, as the cheers started dying down, Karen keyed her mike.

"I know you all came to see a Yellow Dancer concert, and you all probably want to hear Minmei more than you do me. But, humor me for a while. We are not alone out there, in the dimensions. There are other Earths who fared better than we have, others that suffered far worse. Then there are other worlds, where the Masters and Invid never existed, and have their own trials and tribulations. I'll be out there, exploring the infinite worlds, and I challenge you to come looking for me. You have the means in orbit; the ship that has made the jump before. Claim your destiny..."

With that, she began singing the title song of an old, campy, roller-disco musical of the early 80s, the others on stage joining in (after all, many of them did have a soft spot for the movie - especially since it was about a Muse of the Classical Greek variety choosing love over duty). And, as occurred in the movie, as the song ended, the central singer disappeared in a sparkling beam of light, and a wave of energy washed over the audience.

Needless to say, the concert ended there, but no one complained. The night was to be filled with celebrations, homecomings and reunions.

On Haydon IV, the Sterlings had been talking to Veidt about the strange happenings on the planet from the last few weeks. The artificial planet had stirred, as if something was reawakening dormant programming, then that was shut down, hard, and much of the last two months had been restoring normal operations on the parts of the planet that held quarters for the non-Haydonites, as much of the planet's core programming had seemingly been erased. To their horror, the Haydonites found a fleet of warships in a previously unsuspected cavern, in the process. In fact, some of them had come to their senses IN said ships, preparing them for a launch against their own allies.

The general consensus, though held closely private (as most Haydonite matters were), was that their creator was apparently not as benefic as they originally believed. Worse, they found log entries in the fleet's command ship that indicated that it, not one of the warring factions of the ancient Praxians, had delivered and spread the virus that exterminated males from the Praxian genome - and had contributed clandestinely to the events that led to Peryton's fall into madness. Veidt was only discussing the matters with the Sterlings, Exedore and Cabell because he trusted them implicitly to not repeat what had been learned, and that Exedore and Cabell were, perhaps, the only scientists able to comprehend the enormity of the implications without flying off in a rage against the Haydonites.

Still, the debate over how to handle these bombshells was a bit intense, and it was suddenly defused by Aurora coming into the room, uninvited. The raven-haired girl, six years old but appearing to be physically and emotionally in her early teens, had been a worry for her parents for the last few months, as her best friends had disappeared with the SDF-3, and she had not taken it well.

"Mom! Dad! You need to come outside, and see this!" She looked over at Exedore and Cabell. "You two, as well..."

"Honey, we're busy with an important meeting," Max replied, before realizing this was the most worked up Aurora had been since the SDF-3 misfold. He also realized that something had to be happening that was beyond the ordinary, as normally, what was outside never really changed. "Well, okay, we'll come."

The adults followed Aurora out what was supposed to be the door to their balcony overlooking Glike. However, as they passed through the door, they quickly realized they weren't on Glike, anymore...

"It took you long enough," a voice said from behind them, as they realized that they were on a stage, somewhere. As they turned, Aurora ran away from them, to a couple of figures on the far side.

"What?"

"Welcome home; I missed you..." Dana said, stepping up and embracing her parents.

"How did we get here?"

"Blame Karen. She just brought the SDF-3 home, before leaving again. Noel says that you all can use the fake door against the back wall to get back to Haydon IV, any time in the next two days, but after that you'll have to do it the hard way. Aunt Lisa had me waiting here to fetch you to come to the party, since Karen told her before the arrival what she was setting up to get you here."

"What about Aurora?"

"Little sister can fend for herself - she's with Musi and Zor. Speaking of Zor, Zor Prime's been wanting to meet you in person for a long time, Cabell. And, maybe you can help me with this strange issue that my husband's been having since the SDF-3 popped back in. He's been looking at Minmei, like he's seen a ghost; says she looks like his mother; and Minmei's been acting funny about it, as well, almost as if she's not denying it..."

Meanwhile, Bernard and his companions of the last year had retreated into the Green Room backstage, having been all but forgotten in the emotions of the SDF-3 return. They grabbed some drinks, and sat down, talking about the emotions of the last hour...

"What are you going to do now, Rook?" Noel asked. "Drag Rand back to Cavern City and start a family? Given what happened before, they'd probably elect you mayor - or at least sheriff."

"Actually, I just found out a few days ago, and was waiting until tonight to tell Rand."

"Tell me what?"

"I'm pregnant."

Rand's eyes bulged a little bit, then he bent over and kissed her. "I thought you'd been hiding something."

"Congratulations, you two," Alex said. "If you need a good family practitioner, you know where to find me."

"And, with me around, he can make house calls in no time flat. That is, if we don't go into labor the same day. Surprise, Alex..."

"I... I... " Alex stammered, before Noel shut him up with a kiss.

After she came up for air, Noel continued the subject.

"So, when can we expect the rest of you to join the diaper set with us?"

Scott dropped his glass, his hand shaking. It shattered on the stone floor, hitting him, Lancer, and their two Invid princesses with splinters of glass.

"I... don't know if it's even possible," Lancer thought out loud. "Just think of the genetics involved."

"Scott?" Marlene said, shakily, the same sort of quaver in her voice as from the night Sue Graham died, as if afraid.

"What's wrong?"

"L-look at my hand..."

"You must have been cut by the glass. You wouldn't happen to carry band-aids in your wallet, Dr. Tyl-" Scott caught himself, half-way into his joke, as he noticed something - and the others quickly noticed it too. Marlene's blood was RED, like that of any normal human. A quick prick of Sera's finger showed that her blood was now red as well. "Thank you, Karen Freeman, wherever you are now..."

"Karen did this?" Lancer asked.

"During the concert, before she joined you on stage, she came to me. Told me some story about how the Regis needed samples to create the experimental subjects like Marlene, to pave the way for Sera, Corg and the others. I didn't want to believe it, but maybe it is true..."

"What's true?"

"Karen said that my fiancee, or at least her body, was one of the samples that the Regis recovered, as to minimize initial human knowledge of the experiments, before they progressed to the things that were inflicted on Sergeant Ayers. Apparently, in the study of her, they somehow made the connection between me and her, and that led to their dropping Marlene here in for us to find, after they were through studying the hybridization process, and found her to be viable. They were hoping, I guess, that perhaps something intangible would allow her to be a spy on us - but that didn't work out."

"That explains something else," Alex added.

"What?" Lancer inquired.

"Remember how, at first, Noel seemed to have the same problems as Marlene? We were on patrol duty during the period that she must have been created. The reason we crashed wasn't because of any intentional Invid act, but because Noel suddenly doubled over in her cockpit, screaming from what we thought was some sort of psychic attack. I managed to get us to ground, wrecking both our mecha, but when I got to her, she was mumbling stuff about 'Marlene and Ariel' and 'two being one', before she finally passed out. I thought, after the incident at Point Kilo, that she had picked up the trauma we thought Marlene had been through. But, it wasn't until after Sue died, that I remembered that it was Scott that had named Marlene, after we had already found her. Add in the comments by those that knew the original Marlene, that we showed Sue's pictures to before the battle, and things started, well, not exactly making sense, but pointing to something a bit more deliberate in how we ended up with an Invid in our midst."

"Scott, if she really was a simulagent made from Marlene's DNA, it's likely that eventually, if exposed to stimuli that would trigger memories of that earlier life, she'll start recovering that life's memories," Noel suggested. "Not all of them, but enough to make her more like a recovering amnesiac or a Tiresian-process clone. You really need to get her to the Rushes, to see if anything actually begins to surface on its own. In fact, it was probably the clash of her programming with her memories that caused her amnesia. With her Invid elements transmuted to human, such roadblocks are probably long gone."

"What about Sera?"

"Sera's most likely a totally original creation, after they got a better grasp of human genetics. She'll probably retain her Invid racial memories much better than Marlene, which could well be an asset in the future, for future exploration and historical research. So, given this new discovery, what will you do?"

"Sera and I will probably retreat to a hunting lodge up in the mountains, so I can continue educating her in human behavior; it was a resistance safe house, and is nicely supplied, as well as away from prying eyes. Next year, we'll run up to Manhattan to check on the work Simon's overseeing for me. The city gave me title to Carnegie Hall as a reward for service for the community, but it's a bit far down on the list for recovery work and maintenance. Simon's going to have some people working on it as a second job, but who knows how many man-hours a week will actually go into the place. What about you, Scott?"

"Well, it depends on the answer I get here. Marlene, will you marry me?"

"Well, it is a bit sudden... shouldn't we ask someone first, like maybe my mama?"

Scott started crying, and embraced her.

"What made you say that, Marlene?" Lancer asked.

"It just seemed right. Why?"

"Because," Scott said, wiping his tears, "It's almost word for word the reply I got the last time I asked someone to marry me, a few minutes before Mars Division launched its fighters."

"Don't waste it this time, Scott," Alex said. "Guys like us don't get second chances too often. And, there's no telling when we'll see that miracle-worker again, if ever."

**Epilogue: 2041**

"Scott, wake up!" Marie Freeman said, shaking her husband.

"Unhh? What time is it?"

"Oh-eight-hundred. One of the girls slipped in and turned off the alarm clock."

"What the hell for?"

"They don't want to go to the pre-launch ceremony; Mir's got a crush on Drannin, and doesn't want him to see her with her arm in a sling."

"She's the one who got herself into that predicament with that arm-wrestling stunt; She might be three years older than Devin, but even at eight, he's still full-blood Zentraedi, and she's not. Why don't you yell for Noel, and see if she's up to using her 'phenomenal cosmic powers' to speed healing on the sprained shoulder and elbow? For that matter, she keeps offering to teach you and Dana how to do those sorts of things, but you two keep begging out of it. Am I gonna have to make it an order?"

"Oh, all right; I'll have her work with me on those skills during the mission, and I'll drag Dana along whether she wants to or not. Oh, and Noel says that she'll meet us with Alex and Vanessa in the VIP lounge, before we fly over to the space dock for the ceremony."

"I'll just be glad to get all this pomp and circumstance out of the way, and start the mission."

"You sound soooo thrilled; you were the one that volunteered for this - hell, you were the one always pushing for us to actually meet Karen's challenge and go dimension hopping, even when most others were against it. From the way you sounded, someone might think you were Shanghied. Besides, it will be nothing like the SDF-3 mission; we should be able to monkey with the time vector a bit, and come back within a couple months after we leave, regardless of how long we actually spend out."

"Yeah, based in the calibration data Karen keeps dropping in Louie's office like Easter eggs; but do you really think I trust it all that much? She's not even telling us where we'll actually end up. I understand the logic of using the numbering system for the local cluster of universes, based on the contest between Zor & Haydon, and that makes us Universe 3; but the whole point is for us to contact Universe 4, where the _**Korra'ti**_ ended up after its original misfold - but it hardly inspires confidence that she's not telling us if we'll even get NEAR it, using her data."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I think I'd trust her guesses before I'd trust your facts."

"Is that so?" He reached up, and pulled her back into bed, by her robe's belt, loosening it.

"Scott, do we have time for this?"

"Just send the kids ahead, with the luggage."

"But-"

"I'm the captain, remember? I'd like to see them leave without me."

"I love it when you're right - but let's take this to the shower..."

Seven hours later, the ceremony was behind them. Six years of hard work and planning had gone into this mission, and while Scott was the prime motivator, it was Rem, Zor & Louie that had done the majority of the work trying to figure out the really bizarre data Karen sent them from where ever she was at now. They also had to figure out how to put into engineering terms, the ideas Scott had for the ship. As a result, the _**Dreamweaver**_ was definitely one of a kind.

The heart of the ship was the old _**Korra'ti**_, now totally converted for a Micronian crew, from the dual-size setup that had been engineered originally in Universe 4. Within it was the actual dimensional drive, much expanded from the original fold drives of the former scout ship. Built around it was the true _**Dreamweaver**_, itself massing about as much as a Zentraedi flagship, and from its Zentraedi-style construction, looking more like what a _Star Wars_ Super Star Destroyer would look like if built by the Mon Calamari. The _**Korra'ti**_ section still had all its conventional drives and weaponry, and could separate from the larger hull as needed. The large secondary hull contained more weaponry than the SDF-3 (and, of course, power generation and drive systems), but otherwise was mostly empty, designed to eventually accept cargo (including life forms) from other worlds, as well as (hopefully) equipment from worlds far different than the core worlds little different from their own.

The name of the aggregate ship had been the source of much debate, eventually coming down to polling. In the end, it was decided to go with the name not directly tied to a ship from fiction, as it was pointed out that, while the second-place name was from a series of comedic novels, it was not out of the question (especially if the Heinlein theory of dimensional travel held true) that they could run into Zaphod, Ford and the rest.

"Hey, cuz - sorry we're late," Lynn called from across the hangar. "One of Tanya's friends tried to stow away in our luggage."

"Well, better late than never... You get your stuff on board - minus the stowaway, of course?"

"It went straight to the ship, after we turned Mika over to her parents. So, you brought us aboard to add a little maturity to the crew, you said. Just how young are the people you've dragged along for this mission?"

"Well, 80 percent of the fighter wings have never seen combat outside of simulators, but most of those are kids with special abilities; Daniel, for example. He's one of the oldest kids that have those 'secundi' abilities. The bridge crew is a bit older, but still young, compared to us."

"So, who else did you drag in from the family?"

"Shannon and Kayra are sitting this one out; considering that they just had their fifth kid in four years, they've got their hands full as it is. Janet, Roger, Steve and Dani are all well and truly retired, as is their right. However, Noel is using that shiny new degree of hers, and is my Science Officer, and her husband is head of the medical department. I've also got my sister-in-laws as part of the bridge crew."

"I bet Aurora's glad to be getting away from all the controversy."

"Yeah, but she's going to be without her family on the trip. It's gonna be her first time separated from them. It's a good thing she'll have both her big sisters here for her."

"Who else you have from the old crew?"

"The Bakers, Bowie and his wives, and the Bernards. Between those last two families, hopefully we can handle in Tyrolean or Invid issues we run into."

"And, other issues?"

"We'll have to take those as they come. Hopefully, they won't be too far out of our league."

"Captain, the SDF-3 sends its regards," Bowie called over from the communications station, where he sat between Musica and Allegra. Scott was settling into his command chair, the bridge being the former command bubble, now overlooking the park that was the original bridge. The large screens still remained, now used to project navigation displays, and seeming incongruous except when projecting star fields.

"Thank you, Mr. Grant. Send them our complements, and advise them that we'll be leaving orbit immediately. Noel, how do you like the new sensor interpretation gear?"

"Louie outdid himself, Uncle;" Noel replied. "Though, I'm going to have to wing it a bit on exactly what some of this stuff does, until I can scan the system. And before you ask, Alex has similar accolades about the sickbay and labs, though he's for certain some of the tech installed there must be from one of Karen's care packages."

"Always thinking ahead, Noel. Weapons & Security?"

"Sensors are showing green," Dana replied. "Security reports that internal sensors, manned checkpoints and sweeps have confirmed no stowaways - I know that, after what happened with the SDF-3, that was a major concern of yours, Captain. Fire Control, how are the weapons?"

"All showing green," Angelo replied sharply. "I do have two questions, though, sir."

"Shoot."

"One, why do we have onboard capacitors for the weapons that are kept fully charged at all times? And, two: why are the sensor, security & weapons systems all in one department?"

"The capacitors are because we have the room for them, and we don't really know what kind of situation we might run into on emergence into normal space somewhere else. With the backup power, we can blow away an asteroid on collision course, activate shields in case of an attack, or even do an emergency reverse-course fold - in seconds, rather than having to build power for minutes. As we're REALLY folding off the navigation charts, this is a lot more important than with other vessels.

"As for the second question, security & weapons both use the sensors for targeting, and ship defense in the case we have to repel boarders. In fact, there are remote weapons recently added in all the empty sections for you to use in case there's a security breach, that you need to train on. You'll be expected to use them for suppressive fire, until the nearest security station can respond. Navigation, Science, Engineering and Damage Control also use the sensors, but each of you are expected to backstop each other, if you notice something urgent or interesting that the others miss. Dana's position over Security Ops is mainly to put her in charge of all weapons for offense & defense. Besides, it gives her own office in the brig, and that place has always been like a second home for her, hasn't it?"

"Grrrrr..." Dana was getting a little perturbed by that insinuation.

"That's it, sis, keep up the Worf act," Marie teased. "But won't make any difference. In fact, that's one of the reasons I got him to combine the positions."

"Now, now - that's enough. Navigation, can you show a little more composure than your older sisters, and take us out of orbit?"

"Yes, sir;" Aurora replied. "Course two-forty, declination zero. On course for our designated departure point 2 million kilometers out from Earth. Thank you for inviting me on this mission, Scott."

"If figure that you and Noel will be instrumental in trying to find Karen, later on - and you need to get in some of that mandatory service time that you roped yourself into. I'm sorry that it's going to take you away from your family, but I'm sure you don't mind being away from the politics. Plus, your special status with the planetary government means that we can draft you for diplomacy. It may be a few years before the infrastructure is built for the Outreach Service, and you'll need all the diplomatic and navigation experience you can get for that - and I don't envy you in that mission."

"I guess not; after all, the people I'll be searching for when I take that command will be prone to shoot at anyone that looks Tiresian first, without asking for credentials. We're now slowing into our deep orbit position; thrusters powering down."

"Thank you;" Scott triggered a button on his command chair, wondering who he had to blame for not one, but FIVE different captain's chairs, in storage, each based on different _Star Trek_ designs - and he'd had to get the "classic Kirk" model pulled to get his personal design reinstalled an hour ago.

"Captain to Engineering. How did our sublight drives do, and are we ready for our dimensional jump trials?"

"I'm not sure..."

"Louie, say again?"

"The sublight drives performed perfectly. However, there's been some alterations of the fold engines while we were at the pre-launch ceremony, mostly in terms of software."

"Do you think we've been sabotaged?" Visions of another Edwards clone made him shiver.

"Actually, it looks as if some efficiency improvements were made, and that special memory module that Karen requested for fold coordinates only she could alter with those weird tech interface powers she has, has received data input."

"That's a relief. Are you ready to engage the Improbability Drive?"

"Truthfully, I'm not sure I'll ever be ready for it, but the system is showing green."

"What's the matter? Want to throw in the towel?"

A chorus of groans ran through the bridge bubble, followed by the sound of several people snapping towels - all of them located behind him, for plausible denial, of course. "Maybe we should have named her _Heart of Gold_, after all," Scott muttered.

"No, not really. But if you're willing to start, we can engage the drive any time you wish."

"Then, let's get this show on the road; use the first set of coordinates that Karen supplied. They'll probably be safer than just spinning the dials. Activate Fold Engines!"

As the ship disappeared from their home dimension, the adventures of the _**Dreamweaver**_ crew were just beginning.

(Finis, for now)

**Afterword (2011):**

**Finally, after over 20 years, this story is complete. I thank all the fans that have stayed with the story, through thick and thin, over the 15 years it took me to revise and type it from over 1200 pages of chicken scratches that people tell me I'm crazy to call handwriting (and, scarily enough, it was all in "print", not script, and people STILL have trouble reading it.)**

**With a little luck, I might eventually start typing some of the sequels*; hopefully they'll see the light of day before 2029.**

**Stan**

* As of 2013, I've got a bunch of inter-related stories done, but not all the ones I plan on completing before starting the reworking of the two sequels (which have existed as notes and rough drafts for 15+ years, but are far from complete). Many of the intermediate stories between the large fanfics were actually written in the last 5 years.


End file.
